Want to be Taller? Measure your height early in the morning. Low back pain and diurnal changes in disc height.
Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 12:04AMIf you have back pain you probably have experienced difficulty putting on your socks first thing in the morning. Ever wonder why?
It’s a disc issue. That is, the intervertebral disc receives nutrition through the flow of fluid into and out of the disc. This flow of fluid alters the height of the disc. Over the course of a night lying on your back, the discs have imbibed fluid and are usually at a maximum height or relative fullness of fluid. As a result, people with back pain are often “more stiff” first thing in the morning.
Studies have demonstrated a diurnal (or daily cycle) of variation in spine length. One study showed that we can lose as much as 19mm of sitting height over the course of a day.[i] Another study found that the lumbar disc lose about 10% of their height over the course of the day.[ii] What is more noteworthy is that about 50% of this height loss occurs in the first 30 minutes after getting out of bed.
An appreciation of the changes that occur at the level of the disc have prompted experts like Dr. Stuart McGill to recommend that people “should not undertake spine exercises – particularly those that require full spine flexion or bending – just after rising from bed given the elevated tissue stresses that result.”[iii]
[i] Spine. 1994 Apr 15;19(8):935-40.
[ii] Yonsei Med J. 1997 Feb;38(1):8-18.
[iii] Low Back Disorders. Stuart McGill. 2007.
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