The $100B per year back pain industry is mostly a hoax

Had a similar story. After having kids and carrying them around a lot, coupled with no exercise at all, I had an episode of intense lower back pain. After an xray, any structural problem was discarded, I needed exercise to keep my posture.

I then decided that I need to carry on working on a desk for decades ahead (I'm on early 30s) so I had to tackle the problem.

Was recommended by my daughter's pediatrician to look into Pilates classes. I'm now pain free and results came very early on in practice.

Also, random pain spots that appeared frequently (for instance knee pain while driving) are mostly gone too.

> you can't ignore the animal once you got it

Sadly you can, and many people do.

Another Sarno cure checking in. Debilitating "RSI" in wrists/arms and back pain. I tried everything (lots of rest, ergonomic keyboards, cold compresses, NSAIDs, physical therapy), but nothing I did seemed to make any difference. Eventually, after two years of arm pain and half a year of back pain, I read Sarno's book "The Mindbody Prescription". I was very skeptical, but I was desperate. Within a couple of days I felt better, even better after a week, then a month. That was two and a half years ago. Today I have no back pain and I can type all day pain free.

Occasionally I get flare ups where I'll feel a little discomfort in my arms, but reminding me of the lessons within Sarno's books makes it go away within a day at most, and ever since I read Sarno I have never felt that I was in too much pain to work on a computer.

I don't know if Sarno got everything right, but typing this comment without pain proves to me that he is on to something.

Don't suffer for years like I did! If you are interested, I would recommend watching this 20/20 segment with Dr. Sarno: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsR4wydiIBI (13m35s). If you search for "RSI" on Hacker News, there are some great threads in which Sarno's theory is discussed.

See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tension_myositis_syndrome

I wish people would be less cavalier with throwing around gastric bypass as a general obesity fix. I know many people that have had gastric bypass, and have considered it for myself as an obese man.

You will absolutely lose weight with gastric bypass. Full stop. And usually a ton of weight. Which is good! And the surgical complications have fallen way down over time. Those are the good bits. The BAD bits that aren't emphasized in the literature (and that a poor doctor will gloss over):

1) A lack of focus. Universally the people I know that have had gastric bypass seem to have a greatly reduced ability to concentrate on complex tasks and recall. Its almost like 'pregnancy brain' but for men and women and seems to persist long after the surgery.

2) Gastric issues. Everyone knows that people that have gastric bypass spend a lot of time vomiting after their surgery while they adjust to what kinds, and volumes, of food that their greatly reduced stomach can handle. What isn't discussed is that often times your stomach is reduced to such a point where food gets into your intestinal track partially digested, leading to diarrhea and a host of other digestive issues. Also, depending on where the band is placed there might not be enough 'drop' in your stomach for food to easy make it further into the digestive tract. This can lead to further surgeries and even shortening of the intestine. I don't know about you, but going through the rest of my life fighting explosive diarrhea. I'd rather be obese then run the risk of vomiting and intestinal distress for the rest of my life.

3) A general listlessness. I don't know what the cause of this is but I've observed it in everyone that I know thats had it done but no one as much as my mom. She was quite overweight my entire life, but almost disgustingly energetic and just generally full of life. She rarely got sick, and could work a full day of manual labor with no complaint or sign of slowing. After her surgery she shrank way down lost all of her, for a lack of better word, vim. After the surgery she didn't seem to have the energy or interest in pursuing any of the pursuits that made her get the surgery in the first place.

4) Long term results. Long term results for gastric bypass are not great. Most people will shrink down over the course of a year or two to a low weight and then will start packing the weight back on. Slowly at first but usually more and more rapid as time goes on.

I'm not trying to say that gastric bypass isn't an option for a lot of people-but I wish people (obese and non-obese) would stop looking at it as a cure all. Its at best a staving off. Lack of willpower, deep seated problems with food, and self-esteem are almost always the demons at the bottom of the obese pyramid and until you exorcize them, surgery is going to just paper over your problems.

For me it's the sacro illiac joint. It tends to get misaligned and then I get headaches. A yoga teacher gave me a series of exercises that bring it back into alignment and also strengthen the surrounding muscles.

This is very individual and probably won't work for other people.

In general look at the DVDs by Gary Kraftsov. His stuff is very simple but very effective.