Back pain is as old as the Greeks, 400 BC, likely older, and the Greeks had a good idea as to how to make the back be better. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, hoisted a patient upside down on a ladder with knees and ankles bound securely and created the first spinal traction.

Today the same idea works for diminishing lower back pain and sometimes upper back pain as well, but it's much easier to do. It's called inversion therapy.

There are even inversion tables where you can safely secure your ankles, while you lose your back pain in much more safety and comfort than with Hippocrates.

Simply inverting as little as 25 degrees allows for decompressing the spinal pressure that has been causing your back to hurt so bad. When does spinal pressure occur? When doesn't it?

Certainly, when standing, riding in a vehicle, sitting at a computer keyboard and especially picking up the adorable children or grandchildren.

Inversion therapy to reduce lower back pain also accomplishes other great things for the body:

helps the care of your spinal discs, the body's shock absorbers relieves muscle tension and stress by elongating the spine takes pressure off the ligaments and nerve roots enhances the flow of lymphatic fluid generally relaxes body and mind as the spine decompresses from all the daily stress and strain our lives put on our backs.

You don't have to go to a doc or physical therapist for inversion therapy, although some offer it. Inversion tables are for sale in many back stores throughout the U.S. and some other countries.

Once you try inversion therapy, you'll know quickly if it works for you, as it does for most people. You may want an inversion table for your home and should use it, usually twice a day during periods of back pain indicating serious muscle stress. Perhaps, less often as back pain subsides, but you should still decompress your spine regularly.

Inversion therapy has been working since Hippocrates and the Greeks' beginning of medicine, and it will work for you today in your own home.