Our Brand-Spanking New Website

A quick update: our brand-spanking new website – the 2.0 we’ve been working on for the last few months – is finally up and alive!

As always we welcome your comments and suggestions on the new site. We also invite you to share your experiences with managing back pain this summer and would love to hear how our wrap is performing where you’re wearing it – in the outdoors, indoors, on-the road and wherever your summer adventures and everyday life is taking you. Making BeltLife the best product it can be is always our most important aspiration, and we can’t do it without your valuable feedback!

Don’t hold back – contact us now, comment on this blog, or follow us on Twitter!

Hello July, Hello Summer

Please pardon our absence! We know we’ve been away awhile but that’s because we’ve been busy redesigning our website to have a brand-spanking new look ready for the change of seasons.

Where are we at now? Ready to rock summer — and the unfortunate back pain that comes along with it for so many of you. You would think our backs would take a break and enjoy the summer heat, but alas, as summer heats up we must still watch out for AND protect our backs. Back pain is not a seasonal thing, but a very persistent and needy part of our body that requires continued conditioning, correct posture and warm-up, and most importantly, a focus on how to prevent it in the first place. And the number of orders we’ve been processing lately proves that relieving back pain with heat wraps in the summer is just as necessary as it is in the winter months!

Though the heat brings in a tide of lazy beach days, keep in mind that endless road trips, cramped flights and renewed athletic activity come with an increase in back pain, especially if you haven’t moved around all year. Forget sports — even sitting at your desk job for eight hours a day in that super-air-conditioned office is enough to spurt back pain. After-all, it only takes a harmless draft of cold air and the slightest exposure to air-conditioning to stiffen your muscles and bring on that pain.

To enjoy your precious vacation time during the summer months – whether it’s out on the golf course or up in the mountains – we suggest that if back pain is lurking around you remember to use the BeltLife heat wrap for fast and lasting relief. It’s comfortable year-round and we promise you won’t be too hot – Merino sheepskin is unique in that it is breathable and prevents perspiration while naturally generating a comfortable, low-level heat between your body and our heat wrap.

What do you have to lose? Only time stuck in bed.

Visit BeltLife today and see how we can help.

Back-pain help for workers is urged in the UK

10 million working days lost each year + £7 Billion cost to society = SOMETHING MUST BE DONE

Musculoskeletal disorders cost society billions a year prompting the UK Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Alliance to finally tackle the ever-present issue hands on and urge employers to do more. They are recommending that managers should create more flexible working conditions and substantially focus on what their employees can do rather than what they cannot. Everyone has value to bring to the table, and just because someone can’t sit at their office desk doesn’t mean they can’t do their job or utilize their skills for another, more appropriate task. This is especially true given today’s web-enabled communication technologies like e-mail, chat, voice and video conferencing that easily enable those with a sudden or severe physical limitation to contribute without being physically present at the office.

The UK alliance is also advocating the adoption of preventative measures in the workplace and extra training for early intervention – key to avoiding more serious injuries that can put employees out of work for months (and you’ve probably noticed that prevention and early intervention is something we care about a lot here at BeltLife).

via BBC

President’s Week Special!

Wow, what a week we have had! Two snowstorms down…maybe another one to go?

Either way, President’s week begins tomorrow and to celebrate we’re serving up a deep winter discount! Whether you’re going skiing or still shoveling snow, warm up with a Merino sheepskin heat wrap this cold winter week (and couple more months ahead) and don’t let back back pain keep you from spending vacation time with family and enjoying the outdoors.

From now until Saturday, February 20th, save 30% on all orders – simply use code ‘pres30’ at checkout.

Open Source Health Research – CureTogether.com

Making better health decisions has never been easier thanks to the wealth of knowledge out there on the Internet. However, filtering through all that information and determining the reliability of sources and recommendations is often a daunting task that leads to hours of comparing pros and cons — which is why it was so exciting to stumble upon CureTogether, where knowledge truly is power.

A very cool open-source health research site, CureTogether empowers patients by creating a place for people to anonymously come together to self-report symptoms and treatments that have or haven’t worked for them, with the goal of helping others make more informed treatment decisions and contribute data to research. And if your condition isn’t listed, you can simply write in a request to add it to ongoing studies. Straightforward and informative, all you need to do to get started is search for a particular condition or ailment bothering you. Then, you can immediately review the most common symptoms, causes, treatments and related conditions and see how all of these apply to you. It’s about time we were connecting and collaborating about health as we do about so much else, so this is a great step on the web for taking personal health into our own hands and improving our quality of life.

Here’s what a quick search for back pain has produced:

Back Pain Symptoms

Notice that stretching, hot packs and exercise are reported as the three most effective treatments and nine out of ten are non-pharmacological, natural solutions.

Back Pain Treatments

Back Pain Causes

UK medical journal reports troops most vulnerable to back pain

An interesting study published in the UK journal, the Lancet, one of the world’s leading general medical journals, has found that “back, joint and muscle pain were the leading medical problems suffered by US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, accounting for almost one-quarter of all injuries.”

Of course, with the extremely heavy loads troops endure on their back for long periods of time and the wide-ranging, high-stress conditions they undergo that end up straining their back muscles, this news comes as no surprise. The analysis, carried out by researchers at the John Hopkins School of Medicine, has also revealed that of the injuries requiring soldiers to be withdrawn from the battlefield, only 14% percent were due to combat wounds. Sounds like proper training for lifting and carrying heavy weights, preventative measures and possible ergonomic military gear is in order…

via BBC

Smokers at higher risk for low back pain

According to recent findings unveiled by Finnish researchers in the American Journal of Medicine, “there is new data suggesting a modest association between smoking and risk of low back pain, with the strongest association for chronic or disabling low back pain”.

Though not proof nor a direct cause and effect relationship, one of the factors that scientists believe could explain this correlation includes reduced blood supply to the spine. This could certainly have merit – one of the reasons we actually feel back pain when we strain or stress our backs in the first place is due to restricted blood circulation to the spine; consequently, one of the most effective ways to ease back pain has become heat therapy which helps increase blood flow to the spine. The other cited explanations for the correlation include “increased risk of osteoporosis and the increased circulation of pain conducting chemicals in the blood from smoking”. On a positive note, the research does suggest the effects of smoking could be at least partially reversible for former smokers.

via Reuters

Cold Weather is Here…Protect Your Back

Our webmaster chopping wood in Vermont!

It’s funny how our body often functions as a pretty reliable weather forecast, sensing cold and rainy days by the feeling of achy muscles and joints. So now, as we move into yet another winter full of snow, rain and more jumpy and unpredictable weather – at least here in the Northeast US – we want to remind all of you out there not to underestimate the power cold conditions and weather changes have on your back! A seemingly harmless draft can get you stuck in bed and possibly ruin that upcoming vacation you’ve planned for months. This year, take some preventative measures – your back will appreciate it.

BeltLife not only keeps your back nice and warm to help loosen up strained muscles, it also protects and insulates against the cold wind that is often the principal culprit of a tight lower back.

This winter, get out there with a warm and nurtured back and don’t let Mother Nature stop you from doing what you love.