Posts Tagged ‘Lower Back Pain’
If anyone is wondering, the physical therapy I mentioned in a previous post actually seems to have made my pain worse!
But I’ve kept at it anyway and just in the last couple of days, I’ve felt a little better, so maybe it will work in the long run?
If anyone out there really cares, I apologize for not having posted lately. It’s just increasingly hard to motivate myself, even when the pain isn’t getting me down. I have to take care of my ailing mother (who is also ailing financially) and this site isn’t bringing in a penny anyway… so, sorry, but I have to concentrate most of my energies elsewhere, y’know?
I hope a few have found something here they’ve found worthwhile, but if not, it didn’t cost you anything but a few moments of your time. There are plenty of sites out there who will give you nothing for some hard-earned something, so at least you got nothing for nothing here.
Well, that’s one way to look at it anyhow. Your mileage may vary.
Anyway, I still find that stretching and yoga and inversion are among the very best sources of relief, at least for me, so in that spirit, here’s a little video of a yoga instructor showing exercises for lower back pain:
Hi all. Richard again. As it turns out, I won't be having surgery just yet. I am now undergoing physical therapy, again. Hopefully, it will help, but I have more than just back pain. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but I have upper back pain, lower back pain, pain in my right shoulder and pain in my neck.
The back pain, as bad as it was, became a lot worse about ten or twelve years ago when I injured my shoulder. After considerable expense, my doctors finally concluded it was the combination of the shoulder injury and the back injuries they wanted to focus on. As neck surgery didn't look like too good of an idea, at least at that time, and as the upper back would've resulted in significant scar tissue without holding out the hope of helping just a whole lot, the decision was made to go after the shoulder and see where that took me. So I took my doctors' advice and had surgery on the shoulder, but now, about four years later, I can say, unequivocally, it didn't help. So, I have been doing medication, stretching, yoga, self-hypnosis, inversion therapy, etc., i.e., pretty much everything represented on this site and then some, ever since. And now, for the second time, I'm going through a physical therapy program. Sigh.
So that's a brief summary. Don't know for sure if or when I'll get that book written I promised here on the home page. Most days I just seem too busy, or in too much pain, to think very seriously about it. So if I don't, apologies to all who signed up for it. (I'm not saying I won't do it just yet; I'm just having my doubts; so feel free to go ahead and sign up if you want to.)
Anyway, a lot of what the book was going to be about wasn't just this or that therapy, or this or that solution, but about the mental and social and financial and career toll that chronic back pain can take, and how it can affect one's attitudes about life, about God, about the society one lives in and the people one lives with.
Although they say one sort of pain or another affects more than 76 million Americans, what they do not talk about so much is how isolating the experience can be, especially chronic pain. I can only speak from my own experience, but I've not felt much like going to parties and other social gatherings for years, and when I do, I often don't enjoy them very much because, sometimes, within an hour or so, I'm thinking more about lying down to cope with the pain or utilizing some other strategy. Breaking into a yoga or stretching routine isn't often very appropriate, and neither is inversion, so that generally means more medication than I should take, or even alcohol, neither one of those being a particularly good idea and a far worse idea if combined.
So I generally just pine for home, long for the moment when I will be able to lie the heck down! Needless to say, this doesn't exactly make one the life of the party. And of course this limits one's career as well, since it is hard to be up and positive and productive much of the time when you are hurting like hell, and still have 4 or 5 more hours of the work day to go. And of course there are those company-sponsored social events where the tuned-in and clued-in about how the work world really works, can schmooze and politic with the higher ups, which is about the last thing I ever felt like doing.
And of course the career impact combined with the medical costs takes a pretty big bite out of your finances, or at least it did for me. Of course, some of this is true of any illness, isn't it?
But finally, and perhaps the worst part of chronic pain, and I don't know for sure, but maybe chronic back pain in particular, is that nearly everyone has had one experience or another with it, and most of that experience has been temporary or minor or easily dealt with via exercises, medication, surgery, or whatever — and, to put it bluntly, a lot of the too judgmental type of folks seem to think you're just a whiner or a complainer, or are lazy, or are faking it. This is especially true if you have the kind of pain I have had.
What I mean by that, is that I can do just about anything anyone my age can do. I can trim the hedges, take out the garbage, lift weights, and so forth. What I cannot do most days is maintain that kind of activity, or even any activity that involves being vertical (rather than horizontal) for the length of a normal work day, i.e., even with the pain medications, on an average day, if I don't stop every two to three hours to do one sort of therapy or another, often the pain will get so bad that I will become nauseous and pretty much incapacitated.
Yet my neighbors and other acquaintances see me out and about. I go to the gym from time to time. I do a little work around the house from time to time, etc., and I've overheard, or been informed of, their comments, and I know some of them think I'm faking, or that I'm just a complainer, or just lazy, or whatever.
So it's not bad enough to have all this pain. I get to be judged as a slacker by a bunch of mostly healthy, mostly pain-free folks (and 'folks' is not what I sometimes would like to call them). It is very disheartening. It takes a mental toll, and it does make one feel rather isolated.
So in short, that's kinda part of what the book was going to be, or will be, about. Not all of it, but some of it. So if you are going through anything similar, don't make the mistake I did. I have tried, much of the time, to live with it, to endure it. And that was the wrong choice. Pursue whatever self-help you can that sounds reasonable and get your pain treated by a professional if you need it.
Because what I have learned over the years is that, when left untreated and unresolved, chronic pain can weaken the immune system, decrease the quality of life, and create feelings of anger and depression. It will lead to a deterioration of your relationships with others, and can result in a loss of much of your independence.
Trying to live with the pain, just endure it, was a huge mistake on my part. The fact is that most pain can be relieved with proper pain management, and early treatment is important.
So from now on, if the medications are not enough, and if even adding the inversion therapy, the yoga, the stretching and the physical therapy are still not enough, then I'm going to keep pursuing solutions to whatever extent I can afford it.
And that brings me to a final point. The truth is, I can't afford everything, and a lot of folks are worse off. I don't know about you, but my insurance premiums are through the roof, and keep rising every year like clockwork. Very soon, I may not be able to afford it — and the insurance doesn't really cover enough to suit me.
If I (and perhaps you) had lived in a society for all these years that offered universal health care for its citizens — as does every other modern, industrialized society in the world — just think how much human potential would not have had to be wasted! Just think how much American potential would not have had to be wasted! Just think how much more productive and creative the lives we might have led could have been! And that is the real cost of doing nothing, or of doing the wrong thing, when it comes to health care reform, all the wasted potential, our own as well as our country's collectively.
You would think everyone would understand that, but clearly, everyone doesn't. Anyway, what I'm getting at is that, though I know you probably are in pain and probably don't feel like it, please support health care reform, real reform, and try to find a moment to write or call or fax or email (or all of the above) your representatives in congress.
The Chinese have a saying (maybe it was Lao-tzu, or Confucius?), that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Well, it's been a thousand miles already, don't you think? It's time for everyone to pay very close attention to what our government is doing. It's time to demand real health care reform.
The Spine-Worx Back Realignment Device is one of several similar devices now available for back pain sufferers. You’ve probably seen this advertised on TV. One might be skeptical about a device so simple in design, but our founder has used a similar device and has found it to be helpful. Such devices are generally advertised to help with lower back pain, primarily, but Richard has upper back and shoulder pain in addition to lower back pain, and perhaps surprisingly, he has been using the device primarily to help with the upper back pain. As we said, the device he is using is similar, but not this exact product. We hope to post more information on that and other similar devices sometime in the near future.
Designed by a chiropractor, this natural back support system uses your body’s own weight to apply controlled pressure to the spinal vertebrae. As you lie on Spine-Worx, your spine is pressed firmly against the length of its two unique padded and contoured rails, injection-molded to fit the natural shape of the mid- and lower back. The vertebrae in the spine are gradually and gently encouraged to realign into their natural positions, which helps to relieve back pain for many.
If you are not prepared to make the leap just yet, keep any eye out for our future posts as we hope to be posting more about other similar devices and if we can, will hopefully be able to do some comparisons and give our visitors a little more guidance as to which device (if any) might be best for differing conditions.
The manufacturer claims these are clinically proven to help relieve lower back pain, that they have been podiatrist tested, that they help to more evenly distribute body weight to reduce stress, can be trimmed to fit, and that they help you stay on your feet longer. We can’t confirm any of this, except to say good shoes and/or good cushions like these have helped some people, especially those who have to work long hours on their feet. If you are experiencing foot pain or knee pain as well as back pain, and especially if you are a bit heavy or spend a lot of time on your feet, these could be a signs that orthotics could help. Richard’s 78-year-old mother — who has also dealt with back pain (primarily lower back pain) for many, many years — heartily recommends. Richard himself (Back-Pain-Therapy.com’s founder and the sole reason this site exists) remains neutral.
Dr Scholl’s Back Pain Relief Orthotics, Women’s Sizes 6-10, 1 pair, at Amazon
Dr Scholl’s Back Pain Relief Orthotics, Men’s Sizes 8-13, 1 pair, at Amazon