I have a VA disability for a back injury.
After a short time, I refused to take the drugs I was prescribed and instead, deal with the pain with naproxen and with my mind intact.
I strongly feel it is criminal, or darn near criminal for Dr.’s to be prescribing the crap they do because people think they can’t have any pain after too many simple procedures.
Crap, I had surgery on my hand, and refused the opioids the doctor wanted to prescribe.
I was mentioning that I was a little sore. He said "Exercise. Get off your butt. Walk. Run. Swim. That's why I do marathons for fun. Helps me to feel better."
Dammed if he wasn't right. I started exercising regularly. Nothing high impact, just walking, or working around the house. So long as I do it regularly.... works like a champ, I feel 100% better.
Now, every now and then my knees hurt, particularly when I walk too much, but I can deal with that.
It sounds good. What do you have your patients do? Preventive stuff is excellent, but what about the ones in pain already?
I injured my lower back when I was 18 planting a pecan tree for my grandma.
Don’t know what happened, but the next day I could not walk at all for 2 weeks. Ended up going to the sports doctor and got some percocets and muscle relaxers and anti inflammatory. That did make the pain go away.
However that injury continued to plague me from time to time for many years later. All of a sudden my back would just go out, and then I’d be in for some weeks of terrible pain. Best pill I ever found to take for it was magnesium salicylate.
When I was 43, it was the worst. Back hurt so bad I had to use an old person’s 4 legged walker to get out of bed. Terrible and humiliating.
So what finally fixed it was a Ma Roller, inline skating, an abdominal wheel for extensions and push ups.
Apparently my back was really weak from being a lazy bum, and so were my abdominal muscles. I had a bit of a bulging disk which the Ma Roller adjusted nicely. It was kind of hard to learn to skate with a bad back because of the position one must maintain to skate, but I endured.
I had also started to suffer from painful piriformis syndrome right before I started exercising too, and that also went away, thank God, because that really hurt.
So I think it’s safe to say that back pain can often times result from being too sedentary. Always exercise. Always.
However, there are some people who cannot exercise because of disability. So they are going to have to have another answer, I expect.
...Ouch! ping....
i have back pain (stenosis) and there are a lot of quacks out there
I can testify to the effectiveness of physical therapy.
- my 2 cents
I wonder if there is a similar book about heart health and assorted “repairs”. If so, I need to read it now.
from personal experience and those around me, assuming the problem is simple soft tissue injury and nothing else, there’s no better treatment than expert acupuncture. Pretty much everything else is a waste of time.
As a 15 year sufferer of chronic pain resulting from bad back surgery, I can agree with almost everything in this article. Exercise is a great pain reliever, but as I get older, and walking has become more difficult, its very hard to maintain a regular exercise regimen. I hate that opioids have become so demonized, because they are my only source of pain relief now.
‘... “They have restyled themselves as rehabilitation specialists,” which means they’re training patients in effective back-strengthening exercises as a reliable physical therapist would, she tells Quartz, “and are doing a great job with it.” ‘
Do the simple, easy exercises that will prevent back pain and it’s return.
Bookmarking!!
Many thanks for posting this, Nikos!!
Stretching out my hamstrings helps me more than anything else to relieve lower back pain.
I had decompression surgery three years ago, and knock on wood, I am fine now. Prior to the surgery, I was in excruciating pain for months, needed a cane to get out of bed and could barely walk, let alone go to work. To wake up from the surgery feeling better than when I was wheeled into the operating room was a great blessing.
As someone once said, there is no greater feeling than sudden relief from great pain.
Walking is not enough for me. Make back would occasionally spasm if I sat twisted, without support. Too many years of slouching in chairs in front of a screen.
What made the difference was light racquet sports: Pickle ball.
Pickle ball is tennis with a whiffle ball. Faster than badminton, slower than tennis. That made a big difference and I play every other day.
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If overweight, lose it, then exercise.
All I see and hear are Commercials for Companies that sell Back and Knee Braces, as long as you have Medicare.
Sounds like a rip off knowing that they probably Bill the Taxpayers through Medicare Hundreds of dollars for something that would cost you no more than $50 at Walmart.
This is BULLSHIT if you are dealing with 5 lumbar discs all producing severe foraminal stenosis on one side or the other. Add PN and tell me all about the great lyrica or gabapentin. Treating severe pain requires 270 MED of Morphine as a damn MINIMUM.