Back pain can be highly debilitating even in the short-term, making simple, everyday tasks like moving or lifting objects difficult or even impossible. This can be an inconvenience even if your back pain is short-term, but chronic back pain can severely affect people who suffer from the condition’s quality of life.

Back pain is considered chronic after 3 months. Both short and long-term conditions can cause a high degree of discomfort, however, so regardless of whether your condition is related to a specific injury, or prolonged, you may understandably be looking for a way to treat it.

It is thought that roughly 80% of adults suffer from a form of back pain at some stage in life. Due to the commonality of the problem, there are fortunately plenty of treatment options available today. These options vary to a wide degree in how they treat the condition, whether or not they treat symptoms or the condition itself, and their suitability for short- and long-term conditions.

Here are 3 currently popular ways of treating back pain:

1. Topical Pain Relief Meds

If you’re looking for  a quick and over-the-counter relief for day-to-day back pain, topical pain relief meds are arguably the simplest, least invasive, and easiest treatment. They usually come in the form of a cream or gel which is applied directly to the affected area.

Over-the-counter creams for back pain generally include a cooling agent, often methyl salicylate, to provide quick relief to the inflamed area.

It is also fairly common for topical pain relief to include similar constituents to traditional painkillers like ibuprofen and aspirin. They offer a similar effect in this form, but because the cream is applied directly to the problem-area, the pain relief can act faster and be more targeted.

2. Massage

Despite some scepticism over its efficacy, there is a growing consensus in the medical community over the benefits of massage for treating back pain both in the short- and long-term.

Examples of these benefits include short-term pain relief, the relaxation of tight muscles, and improved blood-circulation, to name a few.

However, it is also worth noting that massage should be used in conjunction with more clinical treatment methods to be effective, especially for chronic sufferers. Given the treatment is largely elective, regularly getting massages can also become quite costly in a short period of time.

If money is an issue for you in this respect, you could instead invest in an electronic massager. truMedic.com, for example, offers a wide variety of options which widely replicate the techniques of a pain-relieving massage.

3. Physical Therapy

If you suffer from chronic back pain, it is likely that regularly applying topical pain relief or getting regular massages will not be sufficient in treating it.

In these instances, you may need physical therapy to observe long-term improvements. This can help sufferers in multiple ways, such as by modifying your posture to prevent exacerbating your condition, strengthening your back, and increasing your flexibility through aerobic exercises.