Aeron Office Chair review – Is it the best desk chair for back pain?

The Aeron desk chair is still one of the most popular office chairs on the market today but what if you have a bad back ?
Does the Aeron desk chair help sitting at your desk all day and relieve back pain ?

I’ve been diagnosed with herniated discs and degenerative disc disease 7 years ago and got an Aeron chair.
If you googled “best chair for bad backs” or “best chair for back pain“, back then, the Aeron was the only office chair you should buy.
So I bought an Aeron chair.

When you spend that much money on an ergonomic computer chair (price was like 1000 € / 1300 $), you would expect it to fix your back problems and guess what ? It just doesn’t!

Not just the Aeron though: I have never used any office chair that fixes my back: how do you expect a piece of furniture to heal a herniated disc or stop a disc disease anyway?

When you’re in pain, you’re not thinking straight: you just want it to stop, right?

The best those chairs can do (and that’s a lot) is relieve back pain, help you sit at your desk all day and keep your job.

My Aeron chair didn’t fix anything to my bad back and didn’t help me sit at my desk all day either, but it does have a couple of features that I really like.

What I Like About the Aeron Office Chair

First and foremost: the Aeron is a mesh seating chair: if it were for me, it should be illegal to sell non mesh seating chairs: the mesh backrest and seating of the Aeron makes it one of the best tv chair or PC Gaming chair for that matter. In a Pc gaming chair, you can lean back & play your game for hours and this is where the Aeron is good for: not working.
The Aeron is also much better than the couch for watching TV.

That and the adjustable armrests: I would elevate my feet, lean back slightly and that was the perfect posture and the only way to watch TV without too much pain in my lower back.
The adjustable lumbar support (posturefit) and mesh from the backrest would almost immediately relieve the back pain caused by the herniated discs.

My Aeron Office chair

aeron posturefit


aeron mesh seating backrest



By the way, I’m using the past because this was 6 years ago: thank God, my back is almost fine now and I can sit on the couch like most of the people who do not suffer from back pain.

What I Don’t Like About the Aeron Office Chair

The Aeron office chair doesn’t come with a headrest. It needs to be purchased seperately.
The backrest is not very high does not offer much support to the upper back or the neck.

If you have a bad back, do not buy an office chair without a headrest!
I found out later on that a headrest from another brand could be purchased and would fit, but it seemed to be more like a half-way solution.
The headrest should be adjustable in both horizontal and vertical axes.
By constantly keeping the back of your head in contact with the headrest, you know you’re not slouching at your desk all day.
Otherwise, you just don’t pay attention, you’ll keep a bad posture all the time, and your back problems will just get worse.

Another thing I don’t like about the Aeron chair is the hard plastic material which forms the curved edges of the seating: I like to switch positions and sit on one knee sometimes, but the curved edges of the seating really hurt my ankle and make it impossible.

aeron curved seating edges
Aeron Office Chair – curved seating edges

The seating depth is not adjustable: the Aeron chair comes in 3 sizes: you pick the one that fits you better and that’s it.

Last but not least, the backrest and the seating can not be desynchronized from one another: when you lean back, even slightly , your pelvis will naturally adjust, causing excessive anterior pelvic tilt. Anterior pelvic tilt is a problem that affects a lot of people who spend lots of time sitting on a chair: this article about fixing the anterior pelvic tilt contains detailed information and a few stretches & exercises on how to fix it.

With this posture, the lumbar spine is subject to a lot of pressure and this is a factor that promotes back pain.

Bottom line: Aeron Office Chair Is Fantastic!

If you are looking for a good looking piece of furniture to enhance your interior and that you can use as a chair, I would definitely recommend the Aeron chair.
If you find creative ways of sitting down, the Aeron can be the solution: it’s solid, and it will last forever.

Herman Miller Aeron Office Chair Adjustment Video

See Herman Miller Aeron Office Chair on Amazon

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