Back Pain Advice??

[bushtuckerman]

Spacemonkey, it'd be great to hear how you get on, as i am still trying to work out what to do about a back problem i've had for six months or so. sharp burining pains when changing position like yours, and i'm about the age you were when you first had it. It was worst when it started (after trying to do a tortoise/crab outside on the grass!), and lasted a few weeks, then dies down a bit, but recurs whenever i forget about good posture again, which is frequent as i'm lazy. At the moment it's fine, but i'm sure it will return. I have recently taken up a soft martial art and it seems to help a bit, my back is stronger anyway. My instructor told me to put a ginger poultice on it ... i haven't because i'm lazy but you might like to find out about it.

cheers,

-ian

 

[Spacemonkey]

Ok quick update... just got back from first visit to the chiropractor, and he confirmed more or less what I suspected.
My hips are slightly out of location with the spine (sacro-illeal joints) so much so that my right leg is 1.5 cms shorter that the other when lying on my front. Luckily, this is fairly straightforward to fix, along with the stiff joints in my mid back, and neck. So a bit of manipulation and a spot of cracking later I feel as flexible as i did 15 years ago! Pain has gone for now. I know it will return as it is only the first treatment, but 2 sessions a week for a while should do it, then it's a case of stretching and strengthening the muscles, which Abbe's exercises will play a good part. do have a slight lateral curve of the lower spine, but it goes when I bend over, indicating that it is caused by the hip problems and so should go when that is all sorted.
Feel great for now, and wish I'd gone years ago!!

 

[Abbe Osram]

Great mate,
I am happy for you! Nothing sucks as much as back pain.
I am shooting some picture for you when I do my exercises but everyone in the house is down with a heavy flu, and it will have to wait some days but I am coming back to you mate with the pictures.

cheers
Abbe

 

[Les Marshall]

It's been said beforeon this thread, but you need to get your GP to refer you to a consultant for an MRI. I think though, that if you can streighten your spine when you notice the curvature, there is nothing to worry about. The pain you are suffering may well cause you to lean to one side without realising it, I've been there mate :yikes: so know what you are on about. Chin up uppy_dog

 

[Toddy]

Just read your signature Les

Spacemonkey I'm glad it's finally getting there for you; backache's worse than labour

Cheers,
Toddy

 

[Stew]

Great mate,
I am happy for you! Nothing sucks as much as back pain.
I am shooting some picture for you when I do my exercises but everyone in the house is down with a heavy flu, and it will have to wait some days but I am coming back to you mate with the pictures.

cheers
Abbe

Abbe - I got your instructions from you before but I would be grateful of pictures as well, if that's ok!

 

[Don Redondo]

I had horrible back pain a few years ago. An osteopath sorted out the worst, but it was'nt until I started sleeping on futon that it was completely gone. Then it came back on a trip in the Uinta range in Utah [sleeping on a thermarest]. My travelling partner who is a reconstructive [sports] masseuse sorted it for me there and then. As she said many skeletal problems can be put down by misalignment caused by unequal tensions of the muscles, sort that out and you sort out the skeletal problems [and the trapped nerves].
Also.... try sleeping in a camping hammock, back home, inside the house. The wife/husband might be happier with you hanging there, rather than squirming around and complaining in the bed!

 

[Spacemonkey]

Well the last couple of days have been good. The sharp pain has gone and only a slight dull ache when driving is there. Not bad for a first treatment. Chiro work takes many sessions for a lasting fix. Saturday I changed one of the leaf springs on my Sportrak which involved some very srenuous work in akward positions that would have resulted in severe pain for a day or two.. Nada...! The only pain was when the handle slipped out of the jack and my finger was then whacked into the concrete with much force and has gone a nasty shade of throbbing purple, which is why I have only done one leaf spring so far...

 

[Abbe Osram]

Abbe - I got your instructions from you before but I would be grateful of pictures as well, if that's ok!

sure mate!
cheers
Abbe

 

[bushtuckerman]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4824594.stm

shock horror!

 

[Abbe Osram]

Yes, I agree with the article. The only way to help your back is to retain the former flexability of your movement. Pain in the back comes from a shortening of muscles and a unbalance of muscle structure. The only way for a lasting free of pain life is to correct the underdeveloped muscles with the RIGHT kind of exercises.

Sit-ups are a killer! Don’t do them if you want to heal your back.
Spinning and bicycle driving is very bad for your back too.

The only way to heal is to train ALWAYS A LONG MUSCLE never a SHORT MUSCLE. Sitting all day, working 8 and more hours in front of the computer, driving car and sitting in front of the TV created long back muscles und short stomach muscles. Because the short stomach muscle is used over its limit while standing up and doing a movement. The counter muscle will try to help out until the system collapse. The result is lumbago, after several lumbago attacks one of your disc will break soon.

I had 3 years of excruciating pain, could not sit, stand or walk. Until I found the right exercises and are total pain free today.

If they manipulate your bone structure, still the underdeveloped and wrongly exercised muscles will pull your structure to one or the other side and the unbalance will mess you up again.

Cheers
Abbe

 

[bushtuckerman]

ahh. very clear abbe, thanks.

when i asked my Feng Shou (a taoist art) instructor whether he would ever go to a chiropractor or osteopath he said he wouldn't, but that they can help to a degree for some people. i asked him because he teaches and uses the various taoist health arts for medical problems and said he could sort my back and posture (he refers to 'bone stacking' quite a lot) out. he said the reason he wouldn't was because the taoist arts were more complete and based on 1000s of years of experience...but then he would say that

 

[Abbe Osram]

ahh. very clear abbe, thanks.

when i asked my Feng Shou (a taoist art) instructor whether he would ever go to a chiropractor or osteopath he said he wouldn't, but that they can help to a degree for some people. i asked him because he teaches and uses the various taoist health arts for medical problems and said he could sort my back and posture (he refers to 'bone stacking' quite a lot) out. he said the reason he wouldn't was because the taoist arts were more complete and based on 1000s of years of experience...but then he would say that

Tai Chi and ChiGong are great sports for your back. One thing too is the importants of the mind. After years of pain, your memory is stored in the area of pain or lets say the muscles. And of course in your way of thinking. We often expect pain before we got it, therefore we start to move in a wirred way. Can you believe that I was walking like a 80 years old lady with a little wagon in front of her. Like the old people being afraid to fall to hundered little steps. That was me with 38 year. Even full of pain walking there seeing a old lady being faster than me I had to laugh.

Remember you will have to work into the pain behind the pain is the freedom and only train a long and stretched out muscle. Dont only stretch but activate the stretched out muscle. Only stretching is bad again for you.
I use an helper. I stretch first out the muscle in its entire lenght. Then a helping person is pressing me further down into the pain and I press the stretched out muscle again the pressure of the helper. This I only do a short time and than do a counter movement. The training seassion is finished when the pain is releaved and I feel better. Remember you are not fighting your body but you are programming your muscles again which where trained wrong for years after years.

If you need some helping pictures I can mail them to you. I am not a pretty looking fellow but I have a fat stomach, still I believe you can pick up some ideas to train yourself.

Cheers
Abbe

 

[browndrake]

I won’t be involved in any contention on the matter, but it might be worthwhile to read the last 3 or 4 paragraphs of the article and the multitude of other studies that have been done on the topic.

All too often the findings of research are unfortunately dictated by the funding agency or the researchers themselves.

This is true across the board in any discipline.

 

[Spacemonkey]

That BBC article clearly states that the findings were based on 26 case studies. I'm sorry? 26???!!! So after studying 26 people they can state that Chiro has no benefits? I'm sorry but that is balderdash... Tell that to the thousands of people every year who it DOES work for! I'm one of them. Practically all my back pain has gone and I have total back flexibility again which i haven't had for 10-15 years, and each morning i wake up pain free and flexible, again for the first time in 10-15 years. I have not had a single headache since the neck treatment too, and i would suffer the most awful nauseating headaches every few days due to my neck. All gone... Once the treatment is finished then I shall be onto Abbe's exercises as I think he has a point as well, but chiropractic treatment has definitely been a success for me and i wish I'd done it years ago!

 

[Keith_Beef]

I also have, on rare occasions, severe back pain. It gets to the point where simply breathing is excruciatingly painful while standing. I grip door frames, tables, chair backs, to take the weight off myback while I wlak round to somewhere I can lie down. then I lie, exhale very deeply, inhale, exxhale deeply again, listen to the crakcing noises, twist and wriggle a bit and finally get up...

I'm torn between two ideas.

• That pain is a message to stop whetever damage you're doing.
• That avoiding pain it is simply a childish learned response.

What's to be done?

I've been living with this for half of my life (I'm now 37), and I have fewer debilitating spasms now that I had ten years ago. I wonder what I'm doing; whatever it is seems right.


K

 

[browndrake]

That pain is a message to stop whetever damage you're doing.

yep, or at least a warning message for something. The body is a lot smarter than all of us.

It wouldn't hurt to have it looked at by a competent health care provider, be it chiropractic or allopathic.

It is also very possible that you can figure out what causes it, since it doesn't happen all the time, and be careful with such activities. If there are certain activities that bring it on, there are most probably exercises that you could do to strengthen the weaker muscles and thereby avoid future discomforts.

From your description, it could be several things, so it would be difficult to give any real advice as to a course of action, other than having somebody take a look at it.

hope that it resolves soon and that you feel better.

 

[Abbe Osram]

I also have, on rare occasions, severe back pain. It gets to the point where simply breathing is excruciatingly painful while standing. I grip door frames, tables, chair backs, to take the weight off myback while I wlak round to somewhere I can lie down. then I lie, exhale very deeply, inhale, exxhale deeply again, listen to the crakcing noises, twist and wriggle a bit and finally get up...

I'm torn between two ideas.

• That pain is a message to stop whetever damage you're doing.
• That avoiding pain it is simply a childish learned response.

What's to be done?

I've been living with this for half of my life (I'm now 37), and I have fewer debilitating spasms now that I had ten years ago. I wonder what I'm doing; whatever it is seems right.


K

Hi mate,
pain comes from the muscles. If you break your arm they fix and restrict the movement and you dont have pain. Why you are having pain even if you lay in bed and breath has to do with the fact that you still move. (breathing).
Pain doesnt need to tell you anything. I know about it as I coulnt move my back for 4 years constantly having pain telling me not to move and getting stiffer and stiffer with even more pain. Until I found a medic which told me that I will have to work into and through the pain. Read the rest of my letters here and if you like some picture and links where I explain the teaching of training your muscles in the right way. And re-programming the muscle information.

Today I am pain free and much much more flexable. Last month when I thought I was 20 again, I overdid it and drove 60 km with my snow-mobile and got a lumbago again. Ignoring the pain I worked my exercises and was out of it in no time. Before I was a cripple for at least two weeks and more. I dont believe that you have to suffer like you do. The info is out there and you can be free of your back problems.

cheers
Abbe

 

[mrstorey]

I swear by Pilates. I have a bad lower back dating back to a serious car crash 20 years ago, not really helped by a misaligned spine. Strengthening my core muscles seems to have really helped me to battle the pain - I'd really recommend it.

Michael.

 

[Don Redondo]

The only way to help your back is to retain the former flexability of your movement. Pain in the back comes from a shortening of muscles and a unbalance of muscle structure. The only way for a lasting free of pain life is to correct the underdeveloped muscles with the RIGHT kind of exercises.

Abbe

I absolutely agree Abbe. The way it was explained to me was that the skeleton merely formed a scaffold to hang muscles off, which in turn kept the skeleton aligned. Mis aligment of the skeleton [in normal healthy people] is usually down to muscle problems.......

I'll leave it at that since I don't know much more, only that it was a reconstructive masseuse who sorted out my back and my knees, and not a chiropractor or osteopath, altho the acupuncturist/physio did a load of good when I had frozen shoulders [adhesive capsulitis] ow....

But at the end of the day, if it works for you, go for it. who cares if studies show it's ineffective for the majority... it just means that it was effective for everyone else who tried it