Had back pain for 15 years, took up weight lifting with a pro bodybuilder as a trainer. Fixed all my back pain in less than 3 months, I don't even think about it anymore.
To treat back pain, look to the brain not the spine
41–50 of 146 posts
Re: To treat back pain, look to the brain not the spine
#42Lovely article, as an orthopaedic surgeon I can tell you that most of us know this. Treating chronic pain with surgery is generally a bad idea, I spend a large share of my time explaining this. Some patients are grateful for this, but I think that many go and try to find "a real doctor". An interesting development is that there is generally an increased acceptance for psychiatric diagnoses. More are accepting that ju…
> An interesting development is that there is generally an increased acceptance for psychiatric diagnoses. Psychiatry is the only medical specialty that has a resistance movement and survivors groups. I think psychiatrists do okay with diagnosis, but commonly-used treatments frequently make the patients' condition worse. Ref: Whitaker's Anatomy of an Epidemic > More are accepting that just as the pancreas may stop de…
I agree, there are serious issues with many of the drug treatments and psychiatry has some dark history - but so does orthopaedics (e.g. the pseudotumors associated with hip resurfacing). Even if anti-depressants are no more effective than placebo, I still think a knife may be an even worse alternative and I've seen patients spiraling down into an abyss of pain after repeated failed surgeries. My hope is that if we are able to correctly identify the cause we can start getting somewhere with the treatment.
This said, there are indications that there is a subset of cases where the pain actually is triggered by the spine. The SweSpine register has some interesting numbers that show the results after surgery over time (http://4s.nu/pdf/Report_2014_Swespine_Engl_ver_141204.pdf page 37, DDD). There is also the very fascinating study by Arlbert et al (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23404353) that show that antibiotics may help. As always LBP is most likely a mix of diagnoses where we need to identify the correct subgroups before we even start to test treatments.
Re: To treat back pain, look to the brain not the spine
#43I've been living this horror for six years. If I could just magically stop using medicine and not being treated like a drug addict for merely taking prescribed medicine by all walks of society (from cops, to nurses, to neighbors), don't you think I'd have already fucking taken that choice? The majority of people don't want to be on pills. They want to get better. If I'm in too much pain to physically get out of bed,…
As a migraine sufferer I feel the same way. I tell people who don't take my pain seriously to watch me take a round of Botox for them. It's something like 8 syringes in my scalp. I absolutely would not go through that if a single migraine didn't inflict much more pain upon me. I'll never forget having a migraine come back on as I was leaving the ER one night. They had already dosed me up well. All the drugs did thoug…
I'm sorry you are going through this. I have had extreme migraines, coupled with ocular migraines where I would start seeing colored artifacts or blurry areas for an hour or two.
They have almost disappeared since I switched to sleeping in a really hard Japanese futon and I switched to an active chair at work (search for Peter Opsvik).
It turns out my migraines seem to originate from extreme muscular tension in my left neck-arm joint.
Re: To treat back pain, look to the brain not the spine
#44I've been living this horror for six years. If I could just magically stop using medicine and not being treated like a drug addict for merely taking prescribed medicine by all walks of society (from cops, to nurses, to neighbors), don't you think I'd have already fucking taken that choice? The majority of people don't want to be on pills. They want to get better. If I'm in too much pain to physically get out of bed,…
As a migraine sufferer I feel the same way. I tell people who don't take my pain seriously to watch me take a round of Botox for them. It's something like 8 syringes in my scalp. I absolutely would not go through that if a single migraine didn't inflict much more pain upon me. I'll never forget having a migraine come back on as I was leaving the ER one night. They had already dosed me up well. All the drugs did thoug…
I'm sure you have had your share of well meaning advice. But have you checked out PEMF devices? There is evidence that therapeutic pulsed EM helps reduce migraine pain [1], among a lot of other positive effects. The selfhacked.com guy heavily endorses a device called ICES which costs "only" around $400 (but is of course weaker than the heavy duty devices since it runs on a 9V battery).
Re: To treat back pain, look to the brain not the spine
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
I read about three chapters of this and it cured my wrist pain. Never would have believed it possible if it hadn't happened to me.
I am skeptical. What about those three chapters resolved your physiological ailment?
It sounds impossible but it actually happened - just acknowledging the stress I was under made the pain go away (it's not like you have to solve anything). I think it only took about four days. The crazy thing is it was actually visible. The throbbing swollen veins in my forearms receded. I was receptive to the idea because the pain was the worst the summer my dad was dying in a hospice and I wasn't working at all.
The bummer is there's no way to know if it's stress or not, but it doesn't hurt to give it a try.
Re: To treat back pain, look to the brain not the spine
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you so for core conditioning and strength? Also I'm looking for ways to put together a workstation in the horizontal position
I'd seriously consider Yoga. But to get started, deep breathing I feel has had an affect on my overall core strength. At times, you'll feel like a moron. Deep, deep breathes. I'd suggest starting off for session of like 5 or 10 minutes. It doesn't matter how you do it. Just breathe deep as a practice. But if you need something to get started: something that's standard is X second in, X second hold, X second release.…
Yoga is not recommended for people with lower back pain. When I started having back pain, somebody suggested to me yoga. Everything went great for three months, the pain was still there but lesser , and I felt good and fit. Then one day, while doing surya namaskar, I felt a pain ripping through my spine and fell down, unable to move. I consulted an M.D , and he immediately asked me if I had been doing surya namaskar.
Tldr; yoga is great , but not for all.
Re: To treat back pain, look to the brain not the spine
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am skeptical. What about those three chapters resolved your physiological ailment?
It sounds impossible but it actually happened - just acknowledging the stress I was under made the pain go away (it's not like you have to solve anything). I think it only took about four days. The crazy thing is it was actually visible. The throbbing swollen veins in my forearms receded. I was receptive to the idea because the pain was the worst the summer my dad was dying in a hospice and I wasn't working at all. T…
This; when my Father was diagnosed with cancer I was under a lot of stress but acting like everything was fine. Pretty soon I got alopecia, in my beard not my head. The body communicates with you in very different ways and it can be overlooked. Finding the root cause of pain in your life is the key. Not always, but often.
Re: To treat back pain, look to the brain not the spine
#48For anyone interested, the back pain industry is considered worth more than $100 billion[0].
[0] https://qz.com/1010259/the-100-billion-per-year-back-pain-in...
Re: To treat back pain, look to the brain not the spine
#49This article doesn't have one mention of TMS or the work that John Sarno did? That is borderline irresponsible.
Read "Healing Back Pain: The Mind Body Connection" by Jon Sarno.[1]
I lived with chronic knee pain for over 8 years, and would routinely have "carpal tunnel like symptoms" with my wrists.
Literally within a week of reading that book my knee pain was gone, and my wrists have not had any issues since. My personality type is exactly that described in the book, so it might not work for everyone. But boy howdy it worked for me.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Back-Pain-Mind-Body-Connectio...
Edit: As it relates to the article - Dr. Sarno attributes most of the pain to your brain and unconscious emotional rage. It sounds kind of quackish, but he lays out excellent explanations of how your brain works against you to cause this chronic pain. I was a skeptical as well (I won't give away spoilers but the treatment plan is HILARIOUSLY simple) but it has really worked for me.
Re: To treat back pain, look to the brain not the spine
#50I've been living this horror for six years. If I could just magically stop using medicine and not being treated like a drug addict for merely taking prescribed medicine by all walks of society (from cops, to nurses, to neighbors), don't you think I'd have already fucking taken that choice? The majority of people don't want to be on pills. They want to get better. If I'm in too much pain to physically get out of bed,…
Serious question - have you ever done any weightlifting, specifically whole body functional movements like deadlifts, to address your back pain?
http://spartascience.com/blog-post/strength/deadlifts-can-cu...
Note: if you haven't, even though I strongly and emphatically recommend it, its almost certainly best to start with a coach who can teach proper movement mechanics.