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

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

#291

Post by Cthulhu_ »

pif wrote: post #207
mukundmr wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched to one full meal a day and fruits / salads / soup for the other times. This takes care of hunger issues and helps with losing weight. Change of habit is required and it is not easy. Bariatric surgery can help, but it has it's own annoying side effects and long term (>7 years) reports aren't available widely.

> Change of habit is required Sure, obesity is clearly (also) a problem of bad habits. The question that still needs an answer is: when will the new habit become natural for me? Hunger is not like exercising: while a couple years of training can make a marathon feel natural for the body of a former sedentary person, no amount of training (AFAIK) can either ease the feeling of satiety with the correct amount of calori…

The main challenge is that a lot of people try and change too many habits at once - when new year comes around, lots of people go on a diet, go to the gym, etc.

But changing too much at once will only cause people to revert to old behaviours. Change one thing at a time. I started by weaning myself off of sugar in coffee, one step at a time. Stopping candy was easy, I never had a problem with that, the stuff makes my teeth hurt. And stopping friday/saturday/sunday snacking was relatively easy too once I was no longer living with my parents and it was just put on the table.

Current / most recent change is having a big salad for lunch at work, now that I've got a new assignment that has a big salad bar. Making it big is important; there's pretty much no nutritional value in the green stuff, and it helps me get through the afternoon without feeling hungry.

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

#292

Post by Cthulhu_ »

gehwartzen wrote: post #133
dirkg wrote: post #44

In my experience in the US you are much more likely to be 'sold' on unneeded medication and services vs getting an accurate meaningful diagnosis and course of treatment, when it comes to a whole host of problems but esp w.r.t physical injuries, rehab etc. 90% of the doctors you see will have no clue about treatments you can find in a 5min search on youtube. I don't mean hack treatments or miracle cures but basic phys…

Not to mention that pain itself serves the very important function of telling you that something is wrong or to stop doing something becomes it is causing harm. Prescribing pain meds is a quick way to silence the alarm but allows whatever behavior or condition that coused it to continue.

The challenge there is that there's no easy fix; medication is an easy / quick relief, but anything else takes focused effort for a number of days if not weeks/months/years without direct result. Same reason why the chiropractor as mentioned in the article is popular - instant results.

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

#293

Post by Cthulhu_ »

sundvor wrote: post #26

I'm a programmer, always at the desk. Back problems came on in my mid/late thirties, as I let my physique go. Once I started squatting in early 40s, back pain has largely subsided. Only reoccurred when I got too optimistic regarding my training, after a break. Have now fixed that by learning to train in moderation / be more consistent - as I get older, there really is no excuse good enough for not going. So yes: Lear…

I'm with a personal trainer atm, he screwed up his back with poor deadlifts and/or squats. The posture thing was probably a very subtle thing, but it accumulates when you do it often and with heavier weights. The guy's not even mid-20's yet.

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

#294

Post by curun1r »

pif wrote: post #171
taneq wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weight loss isn't "known intractable". Physically it's very simple, if an overweight person is physically prevented from eating too much, they'll lose weight, just like physically it's very simple to quit addictive drugs. And the drug analogy is a good one, because just like quitting drugs, you can't quit overeating (barring the aforementioned option of someone physically preventing you from doing so - which is liter…

> Weight loss isn't "known intractable". Indeed, weight loss is "simple", as you said. The problem arises when you have managed to get to your target and you realize that, short of amphetamines or similarly dangerous drugs, there is no known way to keep your weight stable with an acceptable life quality . Obese people are not stupid when they choose to keep eating; they've just learnt by experience that, unless you s…

In case there are obese people here who are looking for other options, I found an obscure one that has stabilized my weight 30lbs below where it had been previously. I found that by doing apnea training that freedivers do to increase their breath-hold times, I naturally dropped the weight and it hasn't come back. The exercise itself can be done in 15-20 min per day and is done in either sitting or lying down, so anyone without respiratory issues can do it.

As I understand it from a study [1] that someone here posted the last time I mentioned it, the training changes our body's way of dealing with oxygen. It basically does naturally what happens to athletes that take EPO, though without the dangers of that rightfully-banned substance. That raises the body's basal metabolic rate, which should help in losing weight and keeping it off.

Like most other things weight-loss-related, it's probably not a magic bullet, so YMMV, but my sample size of one resulted in my accidentally losing 20% of my body weight and keeping it off for about a year now.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19850416

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

#295

Post by mirimir »

vonmoltke wrote: post #280
panglott wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not mere availability of food. Obesity rates vary quite widely across OECD countries; the US is at 35%, France/Italy/Spain are at about 5-10%, Korea is below 4%. Overeating is a stress response for a lot of people, and overeating often occurs among people in high-stress situations. The US is a country that tolerates a very high level of poverty, inequality, and insecurity, and this results in high obesity rates…

Where are your numbers from? According to Wikipedia's summary of a 2014 WHO report the US is at 33.7%, France is at 24%, and the major Anglo nations in between. There is not nearly the disparity between the US and the rest of the world you claim. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Body_Mass...

I suspect that it's older data. More and more, "We All Live in America" (Rammstein).

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

#296

Post by Cthulhu_ »

tim333 wrote: post #277
visarga wrote: post #256

For 10 years I had a chronic back pain. It was like burning behind my shoulder blades. I went to doctors, did exercises and massage. No effect. Then I happened to take a Calcium supplement. Pain went away in 30 minutes. Now I am pain-free. Why couldn't the doctors detect my lack of Calcium and recommend a basic supplement in so many years? I think there is a lot of bullshit in how they deal with this kind of issues.…

In fairness to your doctors that would be a hard one to diagnose.

Wouldn't it show up in a blood test? I mean I wouldn't immediately suggest a blood test for back pain, but still.

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

#297

Post by chad_strategic »

shakermakr wrote: post #163
chad_strategic wrote: post #152

My recommendations for fixing back pain or a slip disc. 1. If you are a man, get a smaller wallet, don't be sitting on a thick wallet. 2. If you are in a crappy job that annoys you, then quit or get fired. Some back pain is psychosomatic. 3. Lose about 20 pounds. (I was in great weight lifting shape, but had kinda of looked like a line backer.) 4. Yoga 5. Running 6. Standing desk 4 and 5 are free. The medical industr…

Running is terrible for the lower back. Every time you stride you send shock waves up your legs that decompress in the lower spine. I switched to elliptical training. As you don't lift your feet, impact free. Swimming is also fantastic for the back of course. Evidence: had a microdiscetomy 4 years ago, lots of rehab, and now pain free. Every doctor said don't run!

I probably should have stated that at least with running your mileage my vary. (pun intended)

The elliptical machine gives me shin splints and I don't get a really good cardio work out.

You are right swimming works wonders as well.

Never had any doctor told me not to run, but they all told me to have surgery?

My personal experience is that with some proper exercise and corrective action, the majority of people can beat the need to have significant back surgery. I just want people to know there can be alternatives out there.

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

#298

Post by pmarreck »

blister wrote: post #273

Anecdote of one: I was diagnosed with Stage 4 Hodgkins Lymphoma two years ago. My _only_ symptom at the time was pretty severe back pain, which is unusual for lymphoma. After treatment and remission a year later, I still had the severe back pain. The cancer pain management doctor I was seeing was perfectly happy to keep prescribing godlike levels of opiods. (50+ mg of oxycodone on top of 30+ mg of slow-release morphi…

That's because PT is evidence-based: http://www.apta.org/EvidenceResearch/

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

#299

Post by pmarreck »

taneq wrote: post #144
bigiain wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll vouch for the effectiveness of losing 30+kg (65+lb). Which only reduces the back pain problem for overweight people to a known-intractable weight loss problem... :-/

Weight loss isn't "known intractable". Physically it's very simple, if an overweight person is physically prevented from eating too much, they'll lose weight, just like physically it's very simple to quit addictive drugs. And the drug analogy is a good one, because just like quitting drugs, you can't quit overeating (barring the aforementioned option of someone physically preventing you from doing so - which is liter…

> Physically it's very simple

Claiming weight loss is "simple" is like claiming that climbing Mount Everest is simple because you simply put one foot in front of the other and repeat until you reach the top

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