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To treat back pain, look to the brain not the spine

aeon.co

111–120 of 146 posts

Re: To treat back pain, look to the brain not the spine

#111
post #99
post #21

Lovely 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…

The problem with viewing pain the way you're viewing it is that pain is an entirely subjective concept and there's no way to objectively measure it. Looking for physiological symptoms, like serotonin imbalances, can never adequately explain the perception of pain because there's no way to tell the difference between a symptom and a cause. I've seen through meditation how simply learning to experience pain in a more p…

I could not agree more. Our bodies have had millions of years of handling disease without drugs, we should tap into that resource. The problem I face daily is that many patients come to me and say they don't have the time for physiotherapy and want surgery. They often add that their neighbor had great experience with surgery for the exact same illness. It's actually amazing how illnesses cluster...

It is hard to convince people of taking the slow route. This is a similar to convincing people to write unit tests for their code, we understand that it is the right thing to do but we always have a deadline. Some threads here report that they started with physiotherapy after years of other solutions, I would love to know how to change years into months.

Re: To treat back pain, look to the brain not the spine

#112
Does anyone have experience with the Alexander technique? I've recently got interested in it, not because of back pain, but they say it helps with back pain as well. Basically it's a way to change your movement habits and get a better posture as a result. It probably not a cure for every case, but what I've heard so far was very interesting.

Re: To treat back pain, look to the brain not the spine

#113
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey man after 3 years I just finally beat back pain - it is possible. In my case it was physical therapy until i understood the routine to strengthen the core and stretching. I also changed how I work: no sitting, ever. Laying or standing. I lost weight (i am 6'1 got down to 165). I took stretching serious, you should be able to touch your toes. You need to drink milk. For depression find a position to work while you…

> I also changed how I work: no sitting, ever. Laying or standing If you don't mind, could please tell me how do you lie down and work ? Since I started suffering from back pain , I was thinking if something like this was possible. I was also afraid it would fuck up my eyes, have you had any problems of that sort ?

Laying down was a large part of fixing my RSI. On a bed, on my back, head propped on a pillow, knees at a 45 degree angle, bottom of laptop laying on hip bones. This was my primary working position for a few years, and I didn't see any negatives.

Re: To treat back pain, look to the brain not the spine

#114
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're enthusiastic about milk and believe that strength is the way out of pain, I have the best recommendation for you: Starting Strength.

I'm enthusiastic about milk, but why is it so good for us?

He recommends drinking a gallon of milk a day, aka GOMAD.

Re: To treat back pain, look to the brain not the spine

#115
post #49

This 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 pers…

Long time sufferer. Read his work decades ago. Couldn't get the full effect of his methods but agree with it completely. Intensity, recurrence and duration are all lower but can't get rid of it altogether.

If you haven't already, try calisthenics to strengthen the core and regular stretching. I found these made a big difference in addition to the book.

Re: To treat back pain, look to the brain not the spine

#116
post #5

I'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,…

I had somewhat bad back pain for a long while (squash injury). The thing that made the most difference was a core strengthening class I did (basically Pilates and specific stretches).

Did you see a GP or a physiotherapist?

Re: To treat back pain, look to the brain not the spine

#117
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey man after 3 years I just finally beat back pain - it is possible. In my case it was physical therapy until i understood the routine to strengthen the core and stretching. I also changed how I work: no sitting, ever. Laying or standing. I lost weight (i am 6'1 got down to 165). I took stretching serious, you should be able to touch your toes. You need to drink milk. For depression find a position to work while you…

+1 to this. I suffered from back pain for a long time. Long distance running made it worse. Running made my core weaker and my back pain became worse. Physical therapy did not help. MRI scan revealed a 5 degree scoliosis and a slightly bulging disc (L5/S1). What has helped since then is massaging my glutes thoroughly with a lacrosse ball regularly. Foam rolling my back, glutes, ITB and quads. Strength training for th…

Running and walking are the ultimate efficent exercises homo sapiens. In a perfect world all humans, within the standard deviation, are taught first and foremost how to care for there personal physical health from the time they can walk till they die. Walking and running would be the most efficient exercise for all humans. IMHO

The issues that come from running are related to where you start from lacking knowledge and lacking physical health. Knowledge guides interpretation of pain(what different types of pain mean, when to stop when to push through). Understanding pain is a communication skill that very few people will teach you, but in my opinion is more valuable then literacy. Knowledge also enables positive feedback loops concerning form and efficiency of movement.

Physical health is the structal integrity of the core and stabilizer muscles. Each of these items are on a sliding scale, and somewhere in that scale is a tipping point where if you pass under it you are hurting yourself instead of healing yourself. I hypothesize that 80% of our population falls on the injury side, but that this could be solved with education and PT.

I'm glad you didn't give up, or had the nerve to push past anyone saying "that's just the way you are, you can't fix that" because I feel that statement couldn't be further from the truth.

Re: To treat back pain, look to the brain not the spine

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey man after 3 years I just finally beat back pain - it is possible. In my case it was physical therapy until i understood the routine to strengthen the core and stretching. I also changed how I work: no sitting, ever. Laying or standing. I lost weight (i am 6'1 got down to 165). I took stretching serious, you should be able to touch your toes. You need to drink milk. For depression find a position to work while you…

Slight caveat here: for those with sacroiliitis or SI joint issues, "sitting down is bad for you" is NOT necessarily the answer. In many cases standing is worse for you than sitting. Don't prescribe to generalities, of course, is the lesson.

Correct, these structure areas are some of the most complex within our bodies. There are hundreds of tiny stabilizer muscles in our backs that can be injured. Each disc can have an almost infinite number of ways it can bulge, hemorage or slip. This entire structure is protecting the spinal column and can interfere or damage all kinds of different parts of the body through the nerve connections.

I hypothesize that a majority of depression suffering is sourced by subtle spinal/nerve injuries, which the brain could interpret as death. Once a strong enough signal develops in the brain that's saying, "you're in pain, all the time, you probably should isolate yourself and kill yourself" it's not hard to see how that could lead to depression and suicidal thoughts.

Re: To treat back pain, look to the brain not the spine

#119
If someone also has some serious advice for shoulder pain related to sitting/working a lot in front of a computer, I would much appreciate this. I constantly have pain in my left shoulder for years now and cant find a way how to ease the pain. I have this pain the whole day, but sitting in front of a computer increases it. Already tested a lot of therapist and tried different sitting positions. Standing does not make it better.

Re: To treat back pain, look to the brain not the spine

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Did it resolve your Alopecia?
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