My aching back! continued
The important thing is to get an accurate diagnosis of your condition. It may take a lot of tries with various health care professionals, but keep trying. None of them work together it seems, and each knows little about related fields/procedures. Your traditional family doctor may prove the least knowledgeable of all, but don't give up! My original back problem returned in 1991, and it took till '96 until I could climb like I used to. I still have to (or I'm supposed to!) do the exercises daily and I always wear the belt while climbing or cycling or anytime lower back pain bothers me. I've worn that darn thing for 21 full hours at a stretch.
To summarize, maybe you have a problem with your back that can be helped by one of these suggestions. They are:
Sacroiliac Belt, available at medical supply stores. Helps SI joint instability; helps me.
Chiropractors. Manipulation to break the pain cycle which causes stiff muscles that restrict proper joint movement. They definitely provide relief for back and neck pain, but it seems that the actual cure has to come from your body or elsewhere. If you have to keep going back, it is only providing relief, not actually "fixing " anything. Voltaire once said, "Medicine consists of amusing the patient while Nature provides the cure."
Yoga: There are even special yoga classes for back problems. Too-tight muscles can cause tension and unnatural movement of various joints and structures. If you do a lot of those movements, (walking, climbing...) it can become a bigger problem. Yoga can help stretch those tight muscles and there might be nice-looking, flexible chicks in the class too, besides the teacher.
Sports Physiotherapists. Exercises for strengthening and learning to use appropriate specific abdominal/spinal/lumbar muscles (among other things). Definitely worth a try; it helped me a lot!
Prolotherapy injections. Many traditional doctors don't even KNOW what this procedure is. Don't let that stop you though. There are doctors in many cities (even in Canada!) that do this procedure. The injections aren't that painful (compared to a real back problem) and it works for many different ligament problems. It did work for me, if just for awhile. Note: These are NOT Cortisone injections.
Surgery. It couldn't help me, but for certain disk problems, orthopedic surgeons might still do it sometimes.
Lasers. Used to vaporize the center of a bulging disk, creating a vacuum so the disk collapses inwards and no longer impinges on a nerve. Sometimes used for Sciatica, a back- related condition that can cause pain down the leg past the knee and as far as the toe due to pinched nerve.
For more info, you can web search for keywords like "prolotherapy" "back pain" "sciatica" "sacroiliac joint pain" etc.
With back problems, patience is a virtue. I have precious little of it myself, but I've come to realize that improvements are often slow, don't adhere to a schedule and tend not to happen just because you need your back better ASAP. And they don't always stay "better" either...they sometimes regress.
UPDATE
This past year since Aug 2002, I have had at least six more sets of prolotherapy
injections, 6 accupuncture sessions, 10 rolfing sessions, spent $1750.00 on an MRI that
showed no problem with my back, and I still go regularly to a chiropracter. Plus I work on
my core stability. And guess what: My back still bothers me. S-o-o-o-o,
As of July 2003, after many years, I've basically given up. I've packed it in with
climbing, scrambling, climbing, cycling and rollerblading. I bought a fly rod. Piss on it;
I've had enough; I quit. Maybe I can at least hike to a backcountry lake sometimes and fly
fish without pain.
I always suspected that exercising exacerbated my back problem. Now I'll find out for
sure, while getting fat and developing health problems of the masses as well. My next
book? Life after Scrambles in the Canadian Rockies. B-o-r-i-n-g.
Alan
A few links for back/neck/knee problems+prolotherapy
http://www.chehalempt.com/Spine/SIJ_rehab.htm
A Patient's Guide to Rehabilitation for Sacroiliac Dysfunction
http://www.whiplash101.com/ (1000's of searchable pages on back problems)
http://www.sacroiliac.com/ (explanation of sacroiliac joint problems)
http://www.sonic.net/~nexus/sclero.html (article about prolo injections)
http://www.kneeguru.co.uk/patients/patientsforum/messages/111.html (prolotherapy for backs and knees)
http://www.spondylitis.org/ (ankylosing spondilitis arthritis)
http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/Spa/5550/indexa.html (ankylosing spondilitis arthritis)
http://www.vax-d.com/ (article on latest herniated disc surgery)
http://www.backmagic.com/ Buy Sacroiliac belts online
http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~wazman/anatomy.html Sacroiliac joint information
http://home.inreach.com/doodle/spine/si_joint/si_joint.htm A sacroiliac joint sufferers story of treatments tried.
Use this advice at your own risk.
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