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Back Pain
Few people who do not have "bad
backs" can appreciate the excruciating torture
that constitutes back pain, the inconvenient
agony of lying on the floor in a fetal position knowing
that any movement produces a sensation equivalent to a sharp
wedge being driven into the spine, the
exponential number of lifestyle restrictions it produces,
and the depression accompanying the realization that your
mind has youthful desires yet your body's actions are confined
by limitations ordinarily reserved for the elderly.
Understanding that an exactingly intricate
description of disc disease pain, reproduced here, can be
seen as redundant, any reader who has experienced the pain
is free to return to the TEST
YOURSELF section for commiseration or confirmation that
their back pain is truly disc related.
Many cannot sympathize or empathize with back
pain sufferers because they have never experienced
the awesome reality of a pain so intense that they cannot
lift themselves off the ground, let alone walk. A pain so
oppressive that the simple act of freely breathing is denied,
forcing one to take shallow breaths to avoid any extraneous
movements. They cannot conceive of what it feels like to
constantly search for a comfortable position where seemingly
none exists. People, especially health care providers, who
have not experienced this pain have no conception of this
"task-master's" incredible might. Back pain is
so brutal and unforgiving that it exists only in the abstract
to the uninitiated. Attempts to describe its magnitude by
patients, if accurately done, are easily interpreted by
others (physicians included) as an exaggeration for sympathy
or histrionics for secondary gain. After all, nothing could
hurt that bad!
Guess again unbelievers! I routinely hear
stories from patients in which they describe being absolutely
unable to move and only weakly able to call for help. One
patient known to me sustained a fall in which she suffered
a disc protrusion with spinal nerve
root damage but the disc material recoiled back
within the confines of the ligamentous capsule. Recently,
she stood at the sink for an half an hour unable to change
her position without agonizing pangs that shot through her
back down to her legs. She had to be physically assisted
to her bed by her mother. Adding literal insult to injury,
she was adjudicated by the medical and judicial system to
have psychological overlay that negatively influenced her
ability to be helped, minor arthritis with a few osteophytes,
and otherwise no evidence of significant back injury. Her
tragedy was magnified by the Aspecialist@ who couldn=t admit
in his written procedure note that he failed in his attempt
to properly perform a discogram on her (he stuck her unsuccessfully
with a needle at least half dozen times). He, then, cleverly
worded his findings (something to the effect that "no
disc pathology could be identified") which made it
appear that she had no genuine pathology for the record.
Therefore, no real physically demonstratable injury could
be documented when she tried to sue the parties whose negligence
was responsible for her fall. Compounding the physical pain
she suffers, she also bears the psychic pain of experiencing
that "the system" is so rife with injustice that
it is hard for her to discern which is worse, the divine
injustice of back pain or the societal injustice of a medical
and courts system supposedly designed to prevent injustice.
As a consequence, any surgical
option has been denied her because one doctor determined
that her pain was largely psychological;
and, yet another failed to diagnose it properly. The weight
of these two opinions makes any surgeon reluctant to proceed
without fear of a law suit should the results not meet expectations.
Through my "hands on" manipulative technique,
I could put her back "in", but she, as of my last
contact with her was unable to keep it in for any length
of time. It is obvious by the relief that she gets with
MANEUVERS that she has a mobile piece of disc material that
is difficult to stay centralized; however, she cannot get
this removed surgically because she has been determined
not to be a surgical candidate. She is caught in a painfully
surreal (but not uncommon) Catch-22. The pain she has experienced
exists on levels far exceeding the physical realm, and she
is probably forever limited to that relief which she obtains
through practicing The O'Connor Technique (tm).
Article Contents:
You are not alone
The Pain
Contemporary
Perspective on Back Pain
Historical
Perspective of Back Pain
Science and Art
Alternative
Therapeutic Modalities
Back Surgery
Comparative Programs
Not an Excercise
Program
Dismissing
the "Psychological" Contribution To Spinal Pain
Getting Better
as a Process
Become your own
Chiropractor
Hope
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