Novel mind-body program outperforms other treatments for chronic back pain
Sometime in 1990 I injured my back. I still remember the details. The injury was caused by a strong sneeze while I was bent over picking up a briefcase. In a single second, I couldn&#x27;t stand, I couldn&#x27;t get up off of my knees. It was really quite bad. I went to a few doctors and got advice, but it was more along the lines of it looks like degenerative disk disease. In a few weeks the pain went away and my back felt completely normal.<p>I am posting this in the hope that some HN reader will find it useful.<p>Since that original &quot;injury&quot; other seemly small stresses on my back, especially when leaning over or twisted to one side can trigger this sharp sudden onset persistent back pain. Even sleeping in the wrong bed while traveling can cause me problems. The strange thing is, it goes away on its own after a few weeks and then I feel fine. If I was a yoga practitioner I would believe that yoga was curing it, if I went to a chiropractor then I would believe that  chiropractic was curing my back, and if I was a meditator then I would believe that meditation was curing my back. Back issues like mine get better on their own after a few weeks, this explains why there is such a wide range of &quot;cures&quot; for back problems in general despite the wide variety of causes, some of which won&#x27;t &quot;get better&quot; on their own.<p>Of course I&#x27;ve been to doctors, and the radiological diagnosis is degenerative disk disease, but I think this is common for any person with back pain and no obvious physical cause. Everyone thinks they know what is wrong. And I think that some of them are right and some of them are wrong.<p>I don&#x27;t believe that it has anything to do with my psychological state. I&#x27;ve been through many stressful events in my life and had to work and live under high levels of mental pressure, I&#x27;ve been happy, sad, frustrated on and off over the years--most people have. These states are not correlated in the least with the onset of my back pain. On the other hand, recovery could be affected by one&#x27;s psychological state, being able to relax the back muscles so that back can heal requires some ability to deal with the mind-body issues and the anxiety causes by pain.<p>I had a trainer that was always stressing functional fitness. This definitely didn&#x27;t seem to be useful and was sometime injurious. Throwing medicine balls again a wall and doing every exercise one handed while balancing on one leg weren&#x27;t helpful. The issue for me was the twisting that was encouraged by this training philosophy. Simply keeping fit and keeping my weight down were much more helpful.<p>The best advice I got was from a consultation with a neurosurgeon. This physician was trained to do back surgery but uniquely also treated patients with alternative therapies when surgery wasn&#x27;t clearly indicated. She encouraged me to take vitamin D, omega-3 supplements, and curcumin to reduce inflammation. This has been helpful to me, reducing the frequency, severity, and duration of my back problems. Consulting with her also reduced my anxiety over pain and this might be mitigating the severity of the episodes.<p>Golf -- the was very bad for me, an hour at the driving range could produce debilitating pain that made walking even with a cane almost impossible. I was just learning--maybe I was doing it wrong.<p>Running and jogging -- these didn&#x27;t seem to bother my back at the time I was doing it. I was able to train for and run marathons and even a wild cross country obstacle course race. I&#x27;m not a great runner, but I was able to place well in my age group. What I found was that marathon training is time consuming and leads to some muscle imbalances. My lower back (and upper body too) got weaker because my exercise was just running. The tightness in my lower back from hours of running also gave me concern and occasional, brief, but significant discomfort in my lower back. Overall though, I didn&#x27;t feel that my back bothered me any more than the typical running overuse injuries, like planter fasciitis, knee pain, or IT band pain afflicting my fellow runners. I was able to finish all of the marathons I started training for (training takes around 7 months if you already do a bit of jogging). I hope this encourages people to remain active if their back pain is like mine (I understand that there are many types). I do wonder if so much running could be hard on the disks, does anyone know?<p>Brazilian Jujitsu -- I had to give it up. I never got hurt, but I felt it was the sort of thing that a senior citizen with back problems should not be doing.<p>Sitting and sleeping -- surprising to me was that thick memory foam mattresses that was supposed to be good for backs (Tempur-Pedic back in the 90s) bothered my back while a very firm mattress on top of a solid platform didn&#x27;t. For the sake of my spouse, I found that one of the Casper mattresses works for both of us.<p>Some chairs are great, and some end up causing me back issues. The <i>Zero Gravity Recliner</i> is great, but now they seem very pricey. I got my unmotorized one years ago. When I have a bad episode of pain, sitting in it is one of the only ways I can get relief.<p>I use an adjustable height standing&#x2F;sitting desk with a <i>Motion Stool</i> by UPLIFT. The adjustable desk helps me be things just right, and I&#x27;ve discovered that chairs like the Motion Stool, while requiring some getting use to, allow me to work for hours at my desk without discomfort.<p>It&#x27;s really terrible to be in bad back pain, but for me, I&#x27;ve found some adjustments to my lifestyle have allowed me to be very happy and to hold off on employing more drastic measures for thirty year so far.