[HN Gopher] Back pain is a problem which is badly treated
___________________________________________________________________
Back pain is a problem which is badly treated
Author : pseudolus
Score : 212 points
Date : 2020-01-16 19:31 UTC (3 hours ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (www.economist.com)
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| "$88bn was spent on medical treatments for back and neck pain in
| America, not far short of the $115bn spent on cancer"
| kbutler wrote:
| Injured my back a dozen years ago playing with my toddler - spent
| a couple of days barely able to move for the pain.
|
| Doctors recommended some mild exercises (on all fours, lifting
| opposite arms and legs).
|
| But what really changed it for me was deadlifts. I had been very
| wary of deadlifts (bend over and pick up a weight? crazy!), but I
| started very light (just the motion, then a light bar), was very
| careful with form, and progressed very carefully.
|
| Really made a huge difference for me.
| planetjones wrote:
| Running was actually the cause of my herniated disc. Well
| probably weakened over the years by slouching forward at the
| computer and not building a strong core. But after recovering
| from one huge bout of back pain I started running again and a few
| days later I had sciatica and foot drop. I still have nerve
| damage.
|
| Doing the McKenzie back exercises every morning for the past five
| years is the reason I'm able to still function I think.
|
| I can't say if the pain from sciatica caused by a disc herniation
| is the worst pain I will ever feel, but it would be hard to
| imagine worse.
| mishaky wrote:
| my thoughts exactly. I recently re-injured my back with a
| muscle spasm caused by DDD and the PT tried cupping. this led
| to unimaginable nerve pain. I can't imagine worse pain than
| that
| matwood wrote:
| I herniated a disc while playing basketball. The herniation
| didn't hurt my back, but pinched my sciatic nerve. This led
| to my left leg literally feeling like it was being cut off my
| body. I've torn my ACL and had appendicitis. The pain from
| those was not even in the same universe as the nerve pain.
| adam_jensen wrote:
| This article accurately captures the scope of the problem of back
| pain, but I am not satisfied with its characterization of current
| views on the topic (as someone who had nonspecific back pain from
| age 13-25, finally fixed it by internalizing the right
| information and skills, and is now running a company that
| reliably assists people to get over nonspecific back pain using
| talk-based coaching interventions). We do free trials; more on
| that later.
|
| The sentences in the article that's supposed to sum up the
| current state of the field is: "A definitive physical cause--such
| as a fracture, a tumour, pressure on a nerve, infection or
| arthritis--is found in 5-15% of people with back pain. The rest
| is all labelled as "non-specific", and there is increasing
| evidence that it is not mechanical in origin...Researchers who
| specialise in pain increasingly believe that, in most cases,
| chronic pain means that the [pain] system has become damaged in
| some way that keeps it switched on." So, paraphrasing,
| researchers believe that most of the time the cause is not
| mechanical, yet there is something damaged that accounts for the
| pain. Later on, it goes on to quote a doctor saying that, "the
| reason they've got back pain is that they have financial
| problems, marital problems, disabled children, they are not
| sleeping at night." Notice the second doctor doesn't stipulate
| that anything is "damaged" in the person's pain system at all --
| he explains the pain as a response to the fact that the person
| has a lot of things going on in their life, any one of which may
| not feel completely handled or completely ok at any given time,
| there may be a whole slew of unresolved concerns.
|
| So, sometimes, someone with persistent back pain has a pain-
| danger-alarm system that is working absolutely fine. The pain
| system is not damaged. The pain system a responding to a present
| understanding of the world that make a person feel not ok / not
| safe / in danger of some kind, or to past trauma that a person
| hasn't completely processed, that is still lingering, and making
| the person feel unsafe. It's a map vs. territory issue, there's
| not "damage" in as much as there is something about the person's
| map that implies something about their current experience is
| dangerous.
|
| Sometimes, when someone's pain/danger "check engine light" is
| stuck on, persistently creating pain as if to say "hey something
| is not quite right" -- all that person needs to do is get
| information that physical pain isn't a 1:1 indicator of physical
| damage, and to not worry about the pain. Sometimes, they need to
| address current stresses and past trauma that are making them
| feel not ok, and then the pain goes away. Howard Stern talks
| about a doctor who saved his life by telling him his tissues were
| fine. John Stossel got relief from decades of back pain from the
| same doctor, and profiled him on ABC's 2020. That doctor recently
| passed away, considered a pseudoscientist to the end of his days,
| and current research is just starting to catch up. Expect a study
| in 2020 by Tor Wager, Dr. Howard Schubiner (one of our advisors),
| and Allan Gordon.
|
| If anyone out there needs a white-glove concierge package that
| can assist you to figure out what's driving your pain, and what
| you will be able to do to solve most nonspecific back pain in a
| year, book a free trial here:
| (https://calendly.com/adamjensen/trial?month=2020-01) or check us
| out at www dot attunecarecoordination dot com.
| azhu wrote:
| The spine is the central structural pillar of the body not only
| mechanically, but electrically as well. Messages are passed
| between body parts using electrical signals through nerve fibers,
| which run from the brain down through the spine branching out to
| the rest of the body. When these things get messed with, even a
| little bit, it creates enormous effects.
|
| The spine is surrounded by a system of muscles, all of which work
| in concert to support your body as you put it through various
| positions and movements. Depending on how these things work
| together, certain areas of your body may experience more stress
| and strain and break down. Muscles become tight and overworked,
| soft tissue cushioning degrades, and nerves become pinched,
| stretched, or otherwise compromised.
|
| The way that this manifests in any individual's body depends a
| ton on that unique individual. There is a bell curve distribution
| to the way that people's bodies work, but just like taking
| general technical advice and applying it to a specific problem
| without understanding what makes the advice applicable to a
| specific set of circumstances can have disastrous results, so too
| can it here. Taking general purpose mobility, posture, and injury
| prevention advice without understanding the mechanics of my body
| is actually what led to my back injury.
|
| The mental factor of the condition is certainly the biggest
| hurdle. What helped me deal with two major herniations at L4-L5
| and L5-S1 was becoming educated on not how all back pain works,
| but on how my specific back pain works. It makes you feel as if
| you own the injury, not like it owns you.
| nevertoolate wrote:
| I've spent considerable amount of time in the last 15 years
| trying to figure out why I have back pain. It was never fully
| debilitating pain but more the occasional flare-up with usual mid
| / low level pain in the lumbar area and in the neck. I don't have
| pain or only negligible pain in the last 2 years. But so many
| more important things have changed.
|
| There is no short recipe for killing pain. You have to change how
| you live, and understand that you are responsible for your body.
| It took some time (years) to ease into the situation and realize
| that it is an opportunity from which I can learn. So I had
| learnt. Learning through movement is double fun because the body
| is complex and is "me", so I can experiment and experience at the
| same time.
|
| OK, maybe I have a short recipe, here it goes: Be gentle and be
| curious and build trust towards people who can help. And most
| importantly help others.
| frankish wrote:
| As someone who has Spondylolisthesis [1], what has worked best is
| weight lifting. In particular, full body movements using the
| barbell: deadlifts (also SLDL), squats, and overhead presses
| (just be extra careful here).
|
| My pain has varied. The worst being when I needed steroid
| injections in the nerves that run from my spine down my legs.
| Now, I consider my pain negligible.
|
| I'm no longer a fan of static stretching. I have found it to
| mostly be a waste of time and to exacerbate any problems. In the
| context of lifting, I stretch by warming up with the barbell and
| incrementally add weight until I reach my working weight. In the
| context of BJJ, I warmup with movements like shrimping, gator
| crawls, rolling over my shoulders, etc.
|
| Additionally, getting over the mindset that if you have pain that
| you shouldn't move. The opposite is true. How you feel when you
| wake up does not dictate how you will feel the rest of the day.
| Doing some RDLs with no weight, engaging and warming up your
| muscles is the best cure to my back pain.
|
| I recommend checking out doctors, Austin Baraki and Jordan
| Feigenbaum, at Barbell Medicine [2]. They are big proponents of
| the concept of lifting for recovery and not letting fear keep you
| from recovering.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spondylolisthesis [2]:
| https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/pain-in-training-what-d...
| mc3 wrote:
| This is ridiculously anecdotal, but I asked a yoga teacher how
| to make it more comfortable to sit with legs straight in front,
| and I was expecting some kind of static stretch.
|
| She said to do leg swings back and forth, which I remember I
| did years ago in Taekwando. I find doing those leg swings
| really nice for loosing up the hips and all that and as an
| antidote to office sitting. I also like that I don't need to
| stretch per-se.
|
| Ymmv, I am not a physical therapist etc. etc.
| ellyagg wrote:
| Indeed. My wife broke her back in college before we met. Since
| then she'd had chronic back pain and she figured that's just
| what she'd have to live with. What fixed it for her was hip
| thrusters, which are targeted toward the glutes, but also work
| the lower back to some extent.
|
| To that last, I've wondered how much glute weakness is the
| factor in back pain. I don't know why it necessarily would be,
| but a long time ago I saw a study where high school kids with
| chronic back pain were 100% cured by quadruped hip extensions.
| Of course, those also work the back to some extent, but it's
| another exercise that's prescribed for the glutes.
| ceedan wrote:
| quadruped hip extensions have helped me a lot, too
|
| I've tried hip thrusters in the past when I knew less about
| how weak my glutes were. I'll give them another try. ty for
| sharing
| yomly wrote:
| I have spent a year working on combating my back pain and I
| can tell you that the musculoskeletal system is exactly that
| - a system. The joints and muscles all work in concerted
| effort to move and this idea of isolated muscular contraction
| is a bit like pure functions in Haskell: ultimately pretty
| useless without IO.
|
| The core and spine is crazy complex. For starters I've
| learned a whole bunch of new muscles: glute medius/max, QL,
| serratus, interior/exterior obliques, multifidus,
| upper/lower/transverse abs, inner thighs, quads, hamstrings,
| hip extensors/flexors, lats, spinal extensors/flexors,
| rhomboids, upper/lower traps, pecs minor/major, levator
| scapulae...
|
| That sounds like I've just rattled off some anatomy but
| literally all of those network together to mobilise your
| spine and any one of those being out of whack can cause
| cascading and coupling issues of other nodes in the network.
|
| Glute weakness for sure is one of them so could any of the
| other ones...
| ceedan wrote:
| > Additionally, getting over the mindset that if you have pain
| that you shouldn't move. The opposite is true.
|
| Amen
| xwowsersx wrote:
| Exactly!! I always do the stuff that most people would think
| is the WORST thing to do when your back hurts - like
| hyperextensions, deadlifts, etc.
| btilly wrote:
| This comment scares me.
|
| My wife did a deadlift when she shouldn't have. Next thing
| we know she spent a week unable to move and came close to
| not being able to walk again. Ever.
|
| Turns out that the possibility of your vertebrae popping
| out and pinching the spinal cord is NOT to be taken
| lightly. It hasn't happened to you, but if a bunch of
| people with back problems take your advice then you WILL
| cripple someone.
|
| Yes. Exercise is the best thing for a back. But know what
| is wrong, what works, what helps, and what doesn't. Don't
| just be a cowboy and pray.
| ellyagg wrote:
| Man, it sure is hard to make decisions in this world,
| isn't it?
|
| I've helped several friends and family fix their chronic
| back pain through deadlifts and similar. Chiropractors
| didn't help. They didn't believe in or couldn't afford
| specialists. I'm not even a trainer, just a software
| developer.
|
| From what I've seen, chronic back pain is way more down
| to back weakness, and easily and safely fixable by
| training the back with any of many standard exercise.
| Your body was meant to do these things!
|
| So, then, how many success stories overweigh a horror
| story? When should people choose to take matters into
| their own hands when the world's supply of expertise is
| limited or giving mixed messages...
|
| ...or just unsuccessful. I mean, who doesn't know people
| that got back surgery and they still have back pain? Want
| to bet that many of those people just needed to
| strengthen their backs?
|
| Of course, some people, like my brother-in-law, just
| refuse to exercise, so surgery is the only option.
|
| But I bet a lot of those who got surgery never got a
| compelling pitch making it clear that exercise usually
| works. The incentives for those handing out surgeries are
| just too perverse.
|
| Not that you mentioned it, but what scares me is all the
| surgeries. My coworker's programmer husband got back
| surgery, picked up an infection in the spinal cord, and
| now he's permanently paralyzed on disability.
| xwowsersx wrote:
| You're absolutely right and I should've stated the caveat
| that you have to know your body. There's a difference
| between some discomfort and something really being wrong.
| I have enough experience to know when it's the former and
| when it's really time to pack it up and go home. If I
| can't execute with perfect form, I stop. And I'm always
| reducing the load a lot when I'm rehabing something
| minor. Never be a cowboy.
|
| You really just have to know yourself. It's easy to just
| to convince yourself to refrain with the excuse that
| you're injured or whatever when really it's just laziness
| - only you can know the reality if you're honest with
| yourself. Also, just because you can't deadlift doesn't
| mean you can't do SOMETHING else. It's rare that you
| cannot move at all and some movement is better than
| nothing.
| ceedan wrote:
| I "took it easy" for like 4 months and my back pain only
| got worse during that time :/ lesson learned
| xwowsersx wrote:
| Been there and I see it time and time again with other
| people, usually when they have back problems. It's sad to
| see. I'm empathetic and understand why people feel that
| way, but "putting your feet up" for an extended period of
| time is almost always the worst thing for you. If/when I
| get some minor tweak, I make sure to get back to moving
| as quickly as possible.
| xwowsersx wrote:
| Absolutely! Been powerlifting consistently now for about 4
| years and the best thing for my back has been making it (and my
| entire posterior chain) stronger. If and when I do get some
| minor tweak, I focus on slow, really deep squats and
| hyperextensions which gets the blood flowing and usually
| resolves any issues pretty quick.
| [deleted]
| crescentfresh wrote:
| Was listening to a podcast that was talking about fitness - the
| name escapes my memory at the moment - but I remember the guy
| said something interesting in passing: that a 100% bodyweight
| fitness regimen is fantastic and would be all you need ...
| except it doesn't develop lower back strength. For that he
| said, you need weights.
|
| He didn't elaborate anymore than that but anecdotally I related
| to that statement, all I do is at-home bodyweight fitness
| (can't afford a gym membership atm) and yet I still from time
| to time strain or carry lower back pain from random activities.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Feel free to add any of the dozens of lower back exercise
| you'll find if you google "bodyweight exercises lower back"
| to your regimen rather than take some guy's word for it.
|
| Even the pushup uses lower back muscles, like any plank.
| tbstbstbs wrote:
| The single best thing I did to fight back pain: Start juggling.
|
| I work 10-14 hours per day at my notebook without any external
| monitors and at changing locations. So, my typical posture is
| cramped over a 12 inches display. I started to juggle 4 years
| ago. Initially 1 hour/day - nowadays whenever I have time or
| something at hand. Usually 10-15 minutes/day with some extended
| excises at the weekend. I did not have a single problem since
| then. Try it :-)
|
| Bonus: Juggling connects both sides of the brain. It makes you
| happy and intelligent. As well it helps overcome e.g. anxiety,
| ADHD..
|
| - Start with 1 ball and level up to 3 balls - with regular
| practice it will take you ca. 1 month
|
| - Look at YouTube, but practice at your own speed - 3 balls is
| totally fine
|
| - Picking up the balls from the ground is part of it - embrace it
| joelrunyon wrote:
| This, combined with the expense of doing physical therapy is what
| led me to make MoveWell (https://movewellapp.com).
|
| Most people don't know how good they can actually feel. Sitting
| down all day isn't natural and taking opioids or expensive
| surgeries that aren't guaranteed to work (see Steve Kerr's story)
| aren't great options.
|
| I think most people would be surprised at how good they can feel
| by just taking 5-10 minutes every day to do mobility work and/or
| foam rolling as part of their daily work habit. You spend 8 hours
| a day messing up your posture. You should take 5 minutes to help
| undo it.
| McP wrote:
| Android version please!
| tartoran wrote:
| > and taking opioids or expensive surgeries that aren't
| guaranteed to work (see Steve Kerr's story) aren't great
| options.
|
| Not only not work but make things worse or irreversibly damage
| the body.
| xwowsersx wrote:
| Aww man, no Android version? :(
| bishfish wrote:
| Any thoughts on a kneeling chair and whether it would be helpful
| or appropriate in dealing with a herniated L4/L5 disc in my lower
| back? I work in front of a computer all day.
|
| https://www.ebay.com/itm/DRAGONN-Ergonomic-Kneeling-Chair-Ad...
| jklm wrote:
| My roommate at the time and I had just started at our first jobs
| fresh out of school.
|
| The first thing he bought after he got paid was an extremely nice
| office chair, soon followed by a nice desk.
|
| I didn't quite catch on until 5 years later, but I can attest to
| being blessed with near 0 back pain so far. (Fingers crossed.)
| kasperni wrote:
| If you are looking for a great and simple program for building
| posterior (as well as overall) strength. Check out Pavel
| Tsatsouline "Kettlebell Simple & Sinister" program [1]. All you
| need is a couple of kettlebells and 5*30 min a week. It's very
| much a minimal effort, maximum effect program.
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07ZQKWMKR
| pi-err wrote:
| Over 10 years of terrible back pain, tried all kind of things. At
| some point, I was prescribed painkillers, tried PT, yoga,
| everything.
|
| Turned out that the "glutes/hip weakness" approach was correct.
| Changed my life - not a single issue since years of muscle
| reinforcement in the posterior/hip area with a focus on posture.
| tus88 wrote:
| You could say that about all mental illnesses.
| amriksohata wrote:
| The child's pose really helped me, yoga is awesome
| tartoran wrote:
| Child's pose helped me too and also helped some insomnia
| issues. Deep squatting (without weights) also helped me with my
| spine. However, yoga is not for everyone or better, yoga can be
| for every one but with modified poses. Beware.. Many people
| doing yoga hurt themselves attempting to do certain poses, even
| professional yogis break their backs sometimes..
| flatline wrote:
| I've had enough trouble with yoga in the past that I only use
| a few postures on a regular basis. I think people with
| persistent/severe issues really need one on one coaching from
| an experienced teacher. Yoga classes are often crafted more
| around people's fitness demands than rehabilitation. And
| people often don't have enough experience with pain to judge
| the good from the bad during solo practice. I've had better
| luck with taijiquan, but it's a very different approach. It
| often makes the pain worse, by way of correcting years of
| misalignment and poor habits. It builds strength and
| flexibility very gradually, focusing more on the tendons,
| ligaments, and fascia, than the large muscle groups.
| Ididntdothis wrote:
| Exactly. Don't go to a gym yoga class. Avoid anything yoga
| that has "power" or "core" in its name. There are
| specialized therapeutic yoga teachers. Iyengar teachers are
| usually quite good.
| tartoran wrote:
| I wouldn't go as far as not trying a yoga class, it may
| genuinely help. However, I wouldn't try to do everything
| they are doing in class and wouldn't force my body.
|
| Take it easy and gradually and make sure it's the type of
| class suited for you. There are beginner/intermediate and
| advanced classes. If something feels right it is most
| likely doing good and if something feels wrong don't do
| it anymore. Yoga could be tremendously helpful but if you
| don't do it right it could do more harm than good.
| Ididntdothis wrote:
| Especially don't be competitive and look at other people.
| Some things may just be out of one's reach. It took me a
| while (and some injuries) to accept that I will never be
| able to do what a lot of women in their 20s can do. In
| the end it's not important to do extreme poses.
| justinator wrote:
| Most days I can't even begin to get out of bed without child
| posing first. I'd rate my physical health in the top 1% of this
| country, but physical activity needs a similar type of movement
| therapy (or whatever you want to call it) that sitting around
| all day needs. Gravity never takes time off.
| benboughton1 wrote:
| Well this is timely content for me. I am 32, healthy weight
| range, and going to have athroplasty next week to replace L5/S1
| disc. Information I was told is 9/10 have positive outcome with
| 1/10 still experiencing pain post recovery.
| rsync wrote:
| I implore you not to do this, as a healthy 32 year old, until
| you have attempted to corset, or lock in place, your disc with
| your own muscle.
|
| You _could_ do this with a lengthy, complicated series of
| midsection /trunk exercises, _or_ you could hit every
| associated muscle in the correct balance and proportion _by
| walking_.
|
| Your body was _built to walk_ - you are a _walking machine_.
|
| I had a blown L4/L5 going into basic training and was
| immediately walking 5-8 miles per day. It was very painful and
| debilitating for the first week ... and then it was gone. I
| believe the muscle action pulls the spine back into proper
| alignment and gives the disc nowhere else to go but where it
| belongs.[1]
|
| If you look, you will find this to be a very common anecdote.
|
| [1] IANAD and obviously cannot speak to severe trauma,
| fractures, etc.
| selectodude wrote:
| I blew out my L5/S1 and I woke up after surgery with almost
| no pain at all. It depends entirely on the damage. My disc
| was totally smashed so all the PT in the world wouldn't put
| it back together.
|
| I was 25 when I had surgery though, so god only knows what
| kind of shit I'll be in when I'm 45. Hoping those stem cell
| treatments take off.
| vitaflo wrote:
| Anecdotal but walking significantly helped me as well. I did
| a lot of PT for my back issues and while they were somewhat
| helpful the only thing that really made it go away for good
| was several miles of brisk walking every day.
|
| At least for me it's certainly some muscle thing as once
| winter comes (and I'm walking less) the back problems come
| back. One of the best things this winter was getting a job in
| an large sprawling office, which means I'm walking several
| miles every day at work (all indoors). Haven't had any issues
| this winter at all.
| rsync wrote:
| "At least for me it's certainly some muscle thing..."
|
| Again, I think a good mental model is that of a _corset_ ,
| or a brace. In this case, the corset you are donning is
| made of your own muscle.
|
| You could attempt to build that own-muscle corset section
| by section by doing all of the 40 different trunk and
| midsection rehab exercises, but even then, in what balance
| or proportion could you hope to execute them ?
|
| Instead, you can hit all of them, in concert, and in
| appropriate proportions, by walking.
|
| The difficult part is that bad back pain will not make for
| easy, pain-free walking - at least at first. I found 4-6
| mile walks to produce a fair amount of back pain in the
| year immediately following my initial disc herniation/tear.
| It took that forced week or so at the beginning of basic
| training to pull my spine back together.
| fumar wrote:
| I second this. I am similar age with similar back issues. I
| focus on core work and strength training. I also run 3-4
| miles a few times per week. I am very careful to use proper
| posture vs speed. I have been able to avoid surgery. I still
| have bouts of pain and flare ups on occasion. I typically fix
| them by increasing stretching and better my posture.
| benboughton1 wrote:
| I am glad you had a good outcome. I have not taken this
| decision lightly. I have tried many non-surgical
| interventions (chiro, physio, walking) for over two years so
| the time has come. I think for every 'I had back pain and I
| fixed it with _insert non-surgical solution here_' there is
| just as many 'I put off surgery for _x_ years and wish I'd
| done it sooner'.
| searine wrote:
| >I implore you not to do this, as a healthy 32 year old,
| until you have attempted to corset, or lock in place, your
| disc with your own muscle.
|
| This is not advice you should be giving.
|
| You are not his doctor. You don't know the extent or type of
| his injuries. You have no idea if core workouts will help.
| You have no idea if he/she even can walk.
|
| 90% of herniated discs resolve in 3 months. For the 10% that
| don't sometimes surgical intervention is needed. Don't muddy
| the water with vague uninformed advice if you don't know this
| persons exact medical details.
| matwood wrote:
| > You are not his doctor.
|
| On one hand I agree, but it is useful advice to say make
| sure to talk to different doctors. If someone goes to a
| surgeon, they are likely to lean towards surgery. I'm going
| to assume the GP has already seen doctors that specialize
| in non-surgical treatments like steroid injections directly
| at the site, but for anyone else reading this information
| could be useful.
|
| And, the OP is right. The doctors I've talked to have all
| said surgery needs to be the absolute last resort. Many end
| up worse off or needing more surgery.
| [deleted]
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| Which is caused by the bad cultural ideas in the first place.
| Ideally, people should almost never sit (on the chairs at least,
| yogic sitting postures are Ok once mastered). Maintaining the
| right posture while standing for whole days is hardly possible
| for most of the people too. People should mostly lay while using
| computers + walk for at least an hour + have about 20 minutes
| (see the "The First 20 Minutes" book by Gretchen Reynolds for
| scientific references) of high-intensity exercising and there
| will be no back pain. Sitting is what killing us. Whenever I
| don't have to go to the office I do my coding laying on the floor
| an feel a way better. Sadly, I've never seen an office where you
| would not be meant to sit.
| jiananli_ wrote:
| How exactly do you code while laying on the floor? Do you prop
| your back up at a slight angle with a cushion or something? How
| is your laptop secured on your lap?
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| I lay on my stomach (that's what I meant, not on my back)
| with a hard foam roller + 2 cushions under my chest with the
| laptop on the floor in front of me (not on my lap).
|
| That is not a perfect set-up, however - my neck and shoulders
| still hurt occasionally this way. The perfect set-up looks
| like this: https://imgur.com/a/tmvxHRK or this:
| https://imgur.com/a/Ej2EY2n - this is how spinal surgery and
| scoliosis patients study in Russia and Ukraine.
|
| Besides healthy back feeling, effects I experience while
| working this way include increased energy, decreased appetite
| and better, more enthusiastic mood (kind of like on ADHD meds
| - feels like it boosts dopamine or something).
|
| As for laying on your back - it sounds funny but the most
| comfortable set-up I've ever sat in was a stomatology chair
| (thank's G-d I have healthy teeth and don't have to be afraid
| of it :-)) - put a big monitor in place of the lamp, invent a
| comfortable way to place the keyboard and I'm not leaving it
| voluntarily :-)
| puffweasel wrote:
| Any advice on someone who had two slipped discs, they operated on
| one and left the other. I'm working, exercising ( walking,
| stretching) but still in pain. I'm about to start the whole
| hospital procedure again and not sure I can wait another 4 years.
| Reedx wrote:
| Whenever I go too long without exercise, I get back pain. It's
| like clockwork. Then I start exercising and it goes away until I
| lapse.
|
| Certainly that's not going to be the solution for all cases of
| back pain, but I do wonder how many are taking painkillers and
| such when some regular exercise or other physical changes
| (posture, weight) could do the trick.
| pkorzeniewski wrote:
| For the past several years I had serious problems with lower
| back pain, once every few months it would get so bad I couldn't
| stand/sit/walk without severe pain for at least a week, even
| painkillers didn't help much. One year ago I started to
| exercise at gym, twice a week, and it worked wonders - no back
| pain, except for minor one from time to time if I lift
| something the wrong way, but overall I feel so, so, so much
| better (and look too xD).
| blackearl wrote:
| Depends on the location and severity. I've found that using a
| foam roller before and after a workout, or even daily, has
| pretty much removed any back soreness I used to get.
| Ididntdothis wrote:
| Agreed. I bet 10 minutes of simple exercises daily would solve
| back problems for a lot of people.
| rckoepke wrote:
| Injuries are a different case. I'm in the same set as you, and
| my father as well. As long as he and I do ~20 pushups per day
| and maintain a bit of focus on improving/maintaining our
| posture during various activities - backpain is negligible. But
| neither of us have ever needed to take pain medication for back
| pain.
|
| A lot of the people I've known over the years who took opiate
| painkillers for back pain have had injuries to their spine.
| Some people I know with spinal injuries tried opiate
| painkillers, found that they were effective for the pain, but
| the side effects prevented them from being focused at work, so
| they chose to live with the pain in exchange for mental acuity.
| I also know others who have tried very high doses of opiates
| and it did not significantly reduce the pain from their back
| injuries.
| duderific wrote:
| Me too. I think just moving your body around and getting the
| blood flowing through your muscles tends to loosen things up a
| bit. Something like yoga can be extremely helpful as well,
| although I've overdone it and actually hurt my back too, which
| required two weeks of lots of Advil, ice and heat until it got
| better.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I'm usually pretty dedicated to my gym time, but recently I've
| found my interest waning, and this is what surprises me - I've
| been away for a month-ish, and I find that my back has starting
| to get twinges. It never got twinges before. It'd be stiff the
| next morning, but that was due to DOMS, not because I got out
| of bed funny.
| julosflb wrote:
| This holds true for me as well. If i'm not doing some light
| regular exercice, I start to experience back pain.
| m0zg wrote:
| I'm convinced that most of these are due to the lack of back
| muscle development. Muscles which would normally stabilize your
| spine as you move are too weak to do so, so things get screwed
| up. I had really bad back problems in my mid-30s. They all went
| away when I started lifting weights. Took me a while to even get
| to a point where I could lift _anything_ without back pain in
| fact. Initially lifting 60lbs off the ground would cause pain -
| an embarrassing fact for a heavy-set 6'2" male. After a year and
| a half of consistent progress I topped my deadlift out at 525lbs.
| I decided not to go further, since I don't compete, and I'd need
| to buy more plates and a different bar for my barbell. I haven't
| had any back pain ever since.
|
| The worst part of the situation is, nearly 100% of the doctors
| will tell you not to do back strengthening exercises beyond the
| bullshit you typically see at your PT office, which really does
| nothing to make you stronger. I do not advise most people to lift
| as much weight as I do, but you gotta give that posterior chain a
| good workout at least once a week, and the best way to do so is
| by squatting with a barbell and doing deadlifts. The loads can
| vary, do as much as you're comfortable doing.
| neonate wrote:
| https://outline.com/zZhZLU
| Jhsto wrote:
| I got a herniated disc which went undiagnosed for a long time.
| I've been prescribed/taken/done alcohol, tricyclic
| antidepressants, ibuprofen, codeine, anti-inflammatory steroids
| orally and by injections, McKenzie, light deadlifting, CBD, and
| THC cannabis, excessive biking, walking, running... the list goes
| on. Yet, the most significant cure for me was getting a standing
| desk. It seemed like only once I spent most of my time not
| straining my back, was I able to gain much from all the else.
| stopyellingatme wrote:
| More power to you fellow back pain enthusiast. I also had a
| herniated disc (L4/L5) and the only thing that helped me was
| surgery (lumbar laminectomy). Then lots of walking.
| searine wrote:
| Seconded.
|
| As a tall human being I also had to get fairly big monitor
| stand to add to the standing desk to save my neck from strain.
| Cervical disks can herniate too, and it sucks!
| blackearl wrote:
| It's a little terrifying that the article starts with a guy just
| waking up with a slipped disk one morning, and it seems the most
| effective takeaway is "learn to live with this pain".
| wiz21c wrote:
| I do tai chi chuan, with a teacher that insist on having the
| right (ie efficient in combat) postures. That's pretty tough to
| reach (you need a lot of muscle flexibility); that is, years of
| mild training. Although I'm nowhere near having the right
| postures, working on that twice a week makes a huge difference on
| my back pain. I also do standing tree posture chi kung, 20
| minutes every working days. Helps a lot
|
| And I started to do all of that not because I love martial arts,
| but because it relieves my pain significantly. If I had the time,
| I'd some some swimming too and some running to help my heart too.
| puffweasel wrote:
| Advice needed! Two slipped disc, one operated on. NHS discharged,
| still in pain daily. Working on my feet, stretching, walking etc.
| Is there anymore I can be doing? I was told by my physio at the
| time it was very rare for someone to have two slipped discs at
| the same time???
| searine wrote:
| > I was told by my physio at the time it was very rare for
| someone to have two slipped discs at the same time???
|
| Its not that rare, infact having one disc herniated can put you
| at risk for another herniated due to the uneven loading you may
| be doing to protect yourself from pain from the first injury.
|
| I found gabapentin very very helpful. Reduced neuropathic pain
| tremendously.
| steve_g wrote:
| Sorry, I know that sucks. I've got chronic back pain, but I can
| keep it livable with Stuart McGill's Big-3. Google it.
|
| Other folks have already recommended the Big-3 on this thread.
| loopz wrote:
| Back pain may fluctuate and spike at certain times. A person
| needs to find what alleviates the pain without adverse side
| effects. Exercise needs to be filtered for what works for the
| individual. Good exercises might be swimming and cross-country
| skiing. Always seek medical assessment and treatment, while also
| being willing to take responsibility for own health.
| dvduval wrote:
| Definitely the worst thing you can do is lay there and do nothing
| about it. you have to keep moving. Perhaps it has to be done in
| moderation if you have a lot of pain but the movement seems to be
| for me the best cure.
|
| I think because of my profession sitting in front of the computer
| it's easy to get into certain habits that really just are not
| healthy and there's not enough movement. I don't really get into
| the hype of the standing desk either. Sure, I can stand up and
| work but also I just need to move a lot more and it makes things
| a lot better.
| MockObject wrote:
| For years I had lower back pain. Finally I went to PT, and
| learned a lying-down lower back twist that would cause some faint
| cracking noises which brought immense relief.
|
| Now after lots of lifting, and a much more muscular core, the
| pain and the ability to crack are gone.
|
| My biggest life lesson is that weightlifting is not an optional
| activity that folks can enjoy if they choose. It's an absolutely
| vital activity for everyone outside of a very physical career.
|
| But deadlifts are not necessarily for everybody:
| https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/a29265805/should-you-dead...
| kup0 wrote:
| I will have an occasional bout of constant back pain triggered by
| some action (sitting down the wrong way, sleeping the wrong way,
| bending the wrong way) that will last 1-2 weeks, then it will go
| away 100% and I'll be back to normal.
|
| I am overweight and do not exercise much other than a little bit
| I get at work. I have a feeling being so unfit is causing these
| occasional issues, I'm just glad they are not permanent.
|
| I did have one scary time of back pain where my back would spasm
| and try to lock my legs up and that lasted a number of weeks, but
| eventually it too went away. Thankfully so, because it was the
| most pain I've ever felt in my entire life
| robaato wrote:
| Search for Dr John Sarno (books/videos etc). I remember reading
| an article by Tony Schwartz about how beneficial it was. Easy to
| search for.
| elric wrote:
| Sarno comes up on HN with some frequency, and I never
| understood why. AFAIK there is no good evidence that the
| "tension myositis syndrome" he describes even exists, or that
| his treatments are much better than placebo. I one of his
| books, I think "The Mind/Body Connection", and found it to be
| very new-agey. It basically amounted to "be kind to yourself
| and forgive others and your body will feel better". Maybe there
| is some truth to that, but it's been decades without good
| evidence?
| jamiequint wrote:
| It's because it works.
|
| I had completely debilitating RSI where I could only use one
| hand at a time to type for 15m at a time before I had
| shooting pain all the way up my arm to my shoulder. His
| solution (which admittedly does sound like new-agey bullshit)
| took me from that to zero pain in 3 weeks. I have no idea if
| his syndrome exists or not, but his solution worked for me
| which is really all that matters.
|
| Granted, I did not do an in-depth look into the evidence
| backing his arguments but I did find the argument of referred
| pain to be compelling, if not robustly proven. (e.g. the lack
| of existence of RSI in the time of typewriters, the increase
| in incidence of ulcers as soon as they were tied to stress by
| medical literature, physical back pain manifesting in some
| but not others with the same physical symptoms showing in
| MRI, etc)
| nemo1618 wrote:
| I don't fully buy his exact theory either, but it doesn't
| matter -- it cured my wrist pain anyway. The specific
| mechanism of action is less important than the core premises,
| which are:
|
| 1. My brain is capable of generating the sensation of pain in
| various parts of my body.
|
| 2. My brain has been conditioned to generate pain
| automatically (and unconsciously) in response to certain
| stimuli.
|
| 3. It is possible to recondition my brain to remove this
| automatic response.
|
| The surrounding body of theories and recommendations are just
| methods for accepting these premises and completing the
| reconditioning process. For most people, accepting the
| "diagnosis" is the hardest part. The pain feels very real and
| very much caused by structural problems in the body.
| Personally, it was only after I had accumulated a sufficient
| set of evidence ("the nature and exact location of my pain is
| not consistent," "a nerve conduction study found nothing
| wrong," etc.) that I was able to begin reconditioning. The
| turning point came when, after I started to see some
| reduction in pain, I began experiencing strange symptoms in
| other parts of the body (e.g. headaches, which are rare for
| me). This aligned perfectly with what Sarno's book said would
| happen. After that, I was able to "buy in" 100% and the rest
| of my pain was gone within a few weeks.
|
| I suggest reading Aaron Iba's blog post on the subject; it's
| what convinced me to give it a try: https://aaroniba.net/how-
| i-cured-my-rsi-pain
| clSTophEjUdRanu wrote:
| I think he got the right answer the wrong way.
| clSTophEjUdRanu wrote:
| +1
|
| Helped me with back pains and a plethora of random pains. Also
| helped my partner with hers.
|
| Anytime I raise this book to somebody I'm told I'm full of shit
| though.
| draklor40 wrote:
| Most back pain, especially lower back pain, is a result of weak
| glute muscles, caused by extended periods of sitting. Fixing weak
| glutes, will fix a major chunk of problems.
|
| Had plenty of back pain while running. Havent had any back
| related issues since I started weightlifting.
|
| Weightlifting FTW
| rb808 wrote:
| I'm surprised that people work on laptops for extended periods.
| I'm used to working on a proper desk with full size monitors and
| a good chair. I could never work on a sofa or coffee shop table
| with a laptop for hours, but seems common - how does your neck
| and back survive?
| war1025 wrote:
| Something I've found is that sitting on a couch for anything more
| than a couple minutes will leave me with lower back pain for the
| next day or two.
|
| Much to the dismay of all the older people in my life, we got rid
| of our couch and have taken to just sitting in solid chairs or on
| the floor.
|
| We also sleep on a futon mattress directly on the floor. Any time
| we visit relatives, I wake up with back pain.
|
| Any time the topic comes up, I seriously wonder how many people's
| pain / mobility problems could be solved by just getting rid of
| all the furniture in their lives that actively works against the
| body being able to support and align itself.
| ksdale wrote:
| My dad was a great athlete growing up, and a common way that
| athletes deal with pain is to rest for a while and then gradually
| return to exercise.
|
| As he got older, he followed the same routine, except like many
| aging Americans, he basically stopped exercising. Whenever he had
| pain, he would rest the affected area, but there was never a
| return to exercise.
|
| Every muscle/skeletal problem he had seemed to become chronic as
| the muscles got weaker and weaker. I could tell he was nervous to
| exercise because he didn't want to injure himself and he wasn't
| in very good shape, but it was obvious that rest was doing him no
| good whatsoever, but to his last day, he thought that if he just
| rested, he would start feeling better.
|
| What's surprising to me is how often rest is recommended as
| treatment for people whose entire existence is characterized by a
| lack of intense physical movement.
| sambroner wrote:
| This is a scary comment for me. I'm partially commenting to
| remember it.
|
| I do exercise, but I avoid exercise while uncomfortable from
| back pain. Clearly, if I keep not exercising, I'll eventually
| only get worse...
| vorpalhex wrote:
| It's tricky right, because if you are an active athlete, then
| you may make an injury worse. In martial arts this was a common
| issue where someone would have a minor injury, aim to "work
| through it" and make it much more severe.
|
| At the same time, simply sitting around binging Netflix is
| probably the wrong call in many situations.
|
| What my reading of the current research indicates (and, this
| stuff tends to evolve regularly) is that a short period of rest
| (two or three days) followed by light activity for a short
| phase tends to be the best course of action. To the extent that
| RICE (Rest, Ice, Compress, Elevate) has become MICE (Move, Ice,
| Compress, Elevate).
| mhb wrote:
| This is the standard recommendation for many injuries. Are
| there any controlled studies which demonstrate that injuries
| treated with ice resolve more quickly than without using ice?
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Digging through the exhaustive NIH entries on this topic is
| left as an exercise to the reader
| mhb wrote:
| Let's stipulate that this reader is an idiot who didn't
| think to do that before asking. Is there a single
| reference you can provide from the exhaustive entries?
| ceedan wrote:
| 10000000000% I could talk all day about my back pain (so I'll
| just go on ahead and do that a bit here) and the journey I've
| been on to fix it. It's awful. I've been dealing with 2-4 bulging
| discs and all the back pain symptoms you could dream of. The back
| issues that I have had have gone from the hamstrings all the way
| up to the ears - and seems to be different every week.
|
| If you do not address your back pain, you will go down hill and
| it's not a fun place to be. Chronic pain leads to suffering and
| leads to depression. If you don't address it, the pain is going
| to break you. It will become the first thing you think about in
| the morning and before going to sleep. Take care of yourself!
|
| I'm going to buy and read the 8 Steps to a Pain Free Back book -
| here are some things that have helped me
|
| MASSAGE THERAPY HELPS. MUSCLE RELAXERS HELP. Especially with
| bulging discs you are likely to experience muscle stiffness (a
| somewhat natural reaction of the body. Stiff muscles offload
| weight from the spine... but not a long term solution) The
| stiffness can be so severe that you will be unable to stretch it
| or relax it away. Heating pads and ice will not work. I've had
| erector spinae muscles so stiff that you'd honestly believe that
| they're bones. You could rub your thumb along them and hear them
| pop and crack while the tight fibers rub against one another.
|
| I was on muscle relaxers for weeks (3x a day, every 8 hours), and
| those also helped loosen up the muscles, but never fixed the
| pain. I stopped taking them because their effectiveness was
| wearing off as I took them longer.
|
| Massage therapy has been fantastic to help loosen these up so
| that I can do other exercises and stretches more effectively. I
| actually got sick from my first 1 hour session - mild
| rhabdomyolysis) A good massage therapist will give you tips on
| how to loosen up and stretch things, as well.
|
| I've been able to manage my lower back pain pretty well for a few
| months now, and recently had a breakthrough with my
| upper/thoracic pain:
|
| Lower Back:
|
| - Mackenzie method exercises
|
| - Hamstring stretches (hamstrings become over developed and tight
| from sitting)
|
| - Glute exercises (strong hamstrings cause weak glutes, and cause
| the glutes and hamstrings to fire out of order. You need to
| target the glutes specifically to build them up, relieve the
| hamstrings and reduce pressure on the back muscles)
|
| - I need to find and do more glute/hip exercises. I've recently
| discovered this as a cause.
|
| - Hanging from a pull-up bar (spinal decompression)
|
| Thoracic:
|
| - Foam roller
|
| - Upper cross syndrome (any stretch to help this will help)
|
| - recent breakthrough: MY THORACIC MIRACLE STRETCH! I recently
| discovered this and have been doing it a few days. I woke up
| without thoracic pain for the first time in months
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcV1Qdt686E&list=LL1B0cQt6-g...
| Watch the entire video before doing. There's a lot of proper form
| to account for.
|
| - I found chiropractor visits to be somewhat helpful for the
| upper back, but chiro's can be hit-or-miss
|
| I could go on forever about this crap. Back pain is awful. There
| are likely dozens of exercises I will be doing regularly within
| the next year that I don't even know about yet.
| whalesalad wrote:
| The best thing to remember about back pain is that most of the
| time the pain is not due to a problem in your back, but a problem
| elsewhere on your body. This is commonly referred to in the
| medical field as referred pain.
|
| So if your feet are fucked up, the rest of your body is going to
| be fucked up. If your calves are tight, they will cause issues up
| the chain and it will/can eventually lead to pain in the back. If
| your thigh muscles are too tight, same thing happens.
|
| For those of us who sit often, we tend to get what is called an
| anterior pelvic tilt -- or in plain english a pelvis that is
| rotated or tilted slightly forward. This ends up causing your
| lower back to pick up the slack and curve more than it is
| supposed to, and on and on up the chain.
|
| The single best thing I have found for releasing a tight psoas
| (to remove the tension and allow your pelvis to orient itself
| correctly) is to use a ~20lb slam ball and basically lie directly
| on top of it with it lodged right in the trinagle area that is
| below your belly button and to the side of your groin. Shove it
| in there, take a deep breath, lean into it and you will really
| feel it loosen the tension on your posas. This is makes a
| profound difference in my hip flexibility and usually does a
| killer job eliminating lower back pain.
|
| For a good video demo of the psoas release I do often:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_F-0rtFbOgI @ 1:15 is the pose
| that I use.
| marpstar wrote:
| This. Back when I was overweight I had a fair amount of back
| pain. Once I started lifting (and foam rolling) I discovered
| one day that spending 10 minutes foam-rolling my glutes caused
| 100% relief in my back for a day or two.
|
| A few years of squats and my back pain is now non-existent. Not
| because my back is "stronger", but rather it seems because of
| the increased flexibility from the waist down.
| SheepSlapper wrote:
| Squats and deadlifting is what got rid of my back pain, which
| had been mild to moderate for years. Highly recommended, as
| long as you are VERY mindful of your form.
| programmertote wrote:
| Thank you for sharing. I'm having a little bit of difficult
| time imagining your recommendation in the last paragraph above.
| Is there a video online that kind of shows what you've written
| above? Thanks in advance!
| whalesalad wrote:
| Yeah, my explanation is not great.
|
| Here is a video using a much smaller ball:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQuQ_aKlDjI
|
| Here is another one:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_F-0rtFbOgI @ 1:15 is about
| the position that I use. Lying down, one leg out to the side
| and one leg straight back.
|
| I use a slam ball but a soccer ball or volleyball that is
| adequately inflated would probably work too. If you are tough
| and flexible you can use a softball or something much firmer
| but it will hurt a lot more if you are not ready for it.
|
| I regularly roll out my ass and upper back with a lacrosse
| ball or softball, but haven't tried it on my psoas yet.
| random_kris wrote:
| What a coincidence. I was searching YouTube for exercise
| for back pain. I actually have pain in my left side of
| body. Some pain is in back and some in leg. And this dude's
| (jujitsu master) exercise was the only thing to help with
| my pain
| zackangelo wrote:
| I know it seems ridiculous to spend $50-100 on a piece of
| injection molded plastic, but this thing[0] has been the best
| I've found for getting deep enough into my abdomen to loosen my
| psoas.
|
| [0] https://pso-rite.com/
| whalesalad wrote:
| That is really interesting. I know some people use a
| kettlebell (the handle) which resembles the tool you are
| sharing without the nice flared base.
| jessaustin wrote:
| Kettlebells help the back in other ways as well...
| atom-morgan wrote:
| I bought one of these and was never fully satisfied with it.
| Do you put the prongs directly in line with your belly
| button? Just above or below it?
| sethammons wrote:
| I simulate that with a lacrosse ball and a kettle-bell. I lay
| on my back, and put the ball about 2 inches to the outside of
| my belly button and then place the kettle-bell atop the ball.
| From there, I move it slowly down passed my hip/groin. Don't
| go too heavy on the kettle-bell. I don't go over 35# usually.
| localhost wrote:
| Thanks for recommending this! Just ordered one to try it out.
| I've found that foam rollers, even the knurled ones, don't
| quite dig in deep enough.
| dcchambers wrote:
| I've herniated ('slipped') a disc twice in my twenties, both
| times when I was in periods where I let my fitness level fall.
| The pain was absolutely debilitating - you're really not able to
| do anything. Even with pain meds...standing, walking around,
| sitting, sleeping...it's all hard to do. Recovery sucks because
| you _have to_ move around to recover, but it causes unbelievable
| pain.
|
| I firmly believe for _most_ people slipped discs happen due to a
| lack of core muscle strength and spending most of our days in
| terrible postures (sitting at a desk, for example).
|
| I spend at least 50% of my exercise time focusing on my core now.
| Things like planks, squats, and yoga. My thought being that a
| strong core keeps everything (eg your spine, discs, and soft-
| tissue) in place. I have absolutely no scientific backing on
| this, but it's worked for me so far.
| gnome_chomsky wrote:
| I was experiencing hip pain after too much sitting and not moving
| enough. Went for some consultations and ended up with a surgeon
| that wanted to operate because I was told I had a labral tear,
| amongst other things. I read more about this and it turns out
| that most people when evaluated with imaging have a variety of
| indicators that doctors use to suggest that surgical intervention
| is required to fix. The problem is is that most people don't have
| any pain associated with the indicators. Also, the recovery
| seemed painful and long and from reading around, the outcome
| seemed dubious, if not net negative. They really put their thumb
| on the scale in terms of measuring success. Anyways, long story
| short, I spent about 2 months with a variety of stretches and
| deep tissue work on the muscles on my legs and hips and the pain
| completely vanished. I started lifting weights again (squats and
| deadlifts with plenty of deep tissue work and stretching) and I
| haven't had hip pain since.
| Ididntdothis wrote:
| A lot of surgeons only know how to cut so that's what they will
| recommend. There is also a lot of money to be made. Better to
| try physical therapy, therapeutic yoga or similar first and see
| how that goes.
| adyer07 wrote:
| Ha, I had exactly that same experience, with the same injury,
| no less. The physiologist told me that sure, the surgeon is
| always going to recommend surgery - but if you're going to have
| to do PT, why not do it first and see if it fixes the problem?
|
| PT is the closest I have come to experiencing a miracle cure
| from modern medicine. Speaking as someone who frequently breaks
| themselves.
| sputr wrote:
| Try running. It's one of the rare scientifically proven ways to
| help heal disk problems. It's helped my SO and myself.
|
| But not a lot. 1 to 3 km every day is fine. Walking 1/2 of it is
| fine. Just go out for 30 min and try to run as much as you can,
| but go slowly. Just a bit over walking pace is better than short
| bursts. You really don't need a lot and isn't any better for
| extreme runners. It'll get better in a week or two and it will
| start hurting again if you stop for too long before your fully
| healed (months probably)
|
| It's all about pulsating vertical compression. And even if it
| does not help due to that, it surely will for other things.
|
| Good luck! I hope it helps.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Your joints and spine absorb the shock from running on pavement
| or concrete.
| throwaway_tech wrote:
| I am a runner, I had slight lower back pain before running that
| went away in the early days of running. I mostly assumed it was
| losing weight, which I am sure helped, but there is no doubt
| both my focus on posture and actual posture improved. So it is
| a bit of a positive feedback cycle.
|
| To your point about no to much running, after I began running
| for periods over 2 hours, I would get some back pain during the
| run and stiffness after. However, I began doing pushups and
| planks, sure enough I strengthened my core and I don't get
| backpain on even 4+ hour runs (not to mention I developed a 6/8
| pack which I never had in my life, a nice surprise in the
| mid-30's).
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I used to run when I was still losing a lot of weight. I'd
| still be running except that it seemed to cause an endless
| series of injuries and pains that no one could tell me how to
| fix.
| Jhsto wrote:
| I've been guided to instead cycle. If your back pain is caused
| by muscle imbalance (e.g., another leg longer than the other)
| or herniated disc, then running will supposedly make it worse.
| Yet, activity is important, which might be why running works
| for you.
| tarr11 wrote:
| Running made things much much worse for my back.
|
| Be cautious about this advice.
| sputr wrote:
| The advice is very specifically for mild disk problem. Also
| for light running. You're not going to run any marathons.
| It's just a little more than walking. Overdoing anything will
| hurt you.
| energybar wrote:
| got a link to the research that backs this up?
| sputr wrote:
| On my phone, will link when I get home, but I found this with
| a quick search: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28422125
|
| I think there was a meta review, but will have to ask my SO,
| it was her research that lead us to it.
| fnord77 wrote:
| I never had back pain until I started running.
|
| Now it won't go away no matter how much physical therapy I get
| or other exercises I do.
| milansuk wrote:
| I had lower back pain for over 2 years. 7months ago I started
| running. Once every week for 1hour(~10km). First 3-4 runs I
| took pain killer, because I was ok during a run, but wasn't
| sure what will happen next day, then I stopped taking all pills
| and just went for 1-2hours run once a week. After a month or so
| the lower back pain was almost gone and I run more than 400km
| since. Of course, my whole body feels significantly better.
|
| edit: You should consult that you wanna start running/swimming
| with your doctor!
| [deleted]
| samstave wrote:
| I also recommend a small back brace to assist with posture
| while walking a bit..
|
| Dont wear it all the time - but it helps to remind yourself of
| your posture and put your awareness on your spine.
|
| Wear around the lower back.
| WhompingWindows wrote:
| Mobilize (stretch, foam roll, hard ball) the posterior chain,
| i.e. the back of your body, especially the glutes, hamstrings,
| hips, calves, and the back muscles. This is a CHAIN, the links
| are connected, feed slack into the painful areas by loosening up
| the whole chain.
| DebtDeflation wrote:
| Any sort of joint pain is an extremely complex phenomena, and
| back pain in particular is one of the most complex. It's almost
| never a case of "this mechanical structure was injured resulting
| in this pain". There are tons of studies out there showing a
| significant percentage of the population has disc herniation and
| zero pain while another significant percentage of the population
| has serious back pain but no structural injury visible on a scan.
|
| I'm dealing with this personally in the contest of a shoulder
| injury diagnosed as a torn labrum. My research has turned up a
| number of NIH studies showing that something like 70% of the
| population over the age of 40 will show a torn labrum on an MRI
| regardless of whether they have any symptoms and concluding that
| the tear showing on the scan likely has absolutely nothing to do
| with the acute cause of the recent pain.
| bluedino wrote:
| Once you herniate a disk, it's over.
|
| I can do 20 pullups, I can deadlift 500lbs, but every ~3 years my
| back flares up doing somethiing like standing up and I can't walk
| for 3 days.
| downerending wrote:
| I'm sure there are many variations to this problem. What worked
| for me was like McKenzie (sp?). Roughly, picture doing a pushup,
| except that every muscle in your body is completely relaxed,
| aside from your upper arms. You're sort of passively
| arching/tractioning your spine. Do it slowly and repeatedly. It
| should feel good. Do as many cycles in a day as you care for.
|
| Beyond that, be careful when you get out of bed each morning for
| 30m or so. Your discs are full of water, and you're more
| susceptible to injury during this time.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Seems like back pain is one of those things that it's really hard
| to get legit non-anecdotal advice on. It's like weight loss in
| that it attracts all the usual kinds of pseudomedicine and
| quackery. Read this book! Do this scientific-sounding exercise!
| Go to a chiropractor! Do acupuncture! Drink this mystical energy
| tea! It worked for me!
|
| Is there really any real, reproducible and trustworthy source of
| info on the topic?
| searine wrote:
| >Is there really any real, reproducible and trustworthy source
| of info on the topic?
|
| There are a few longitudinal studies on surgical versus
| conservative treatments for back pain. However due to the long
| duration of the disease there tends to be a high dropout rate.
| Also the risks of surgery tend to have a long incubation time
| (re-hernias at 5 or 10 years on for example).
|
| Even with the most rigorous studies it is a very hard field to
| pin down exact probabilities for.
| relativeadv wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9poXGU11ms
|
| I urge anyone dealing with back pain to watch this video, there
| is a part 2 as well. It isn't short but hey, that's a complex
| topic for you. Deconditioning yourself from fragility and fear-
| mongering prevalent around this topic is very important. Even
| those that mean well do it without realizing it.
| uberstuber wrote:
| I'm a big fan of Barbell Medicine's work but they really need
| an easy to digest article on the bio-psycho-social model.
|
| Look at how much fear-mongering is in this thread alone!
| relativeadv wrote:
| I agree it's an unfortunate problem. To really grok this
| issue requires some time investment.
|
| In this thread I've seen people recommending yoga, stretching
| "tight muscles", the McKenzie method, the McGill book, and
| stretches. I've only seen a couple of mentions of actual
| training. Sad state of affairs.
| acallaghan wrote:
| Iyengar Yoga fixed mine, as well as running 5K 2/3 times a week.
| I still get sciatica every so often, but I can walk and stand
| without pain.
|
| My yoga teacher is 80 years old, and she's an inspiration. If
| you're reading this and have back pain, try Iyengar Yoga. It's
| guided and careful, and my class is roughly 50-50 split of men &
| women, and the vibe isn't competitive or nasty. Just 20 people
| carefully doing stretches together really
| mihirchronicles wrote:
| OMG! This is so timely because someone asked on Twitter, what is
| one thing you wish you could've learned 10 years ago? My answer
| was taking care of posture. This is so epidemic, IMO. This is the
| closest I have come to feeling chronic pain that I had no control
| over.
|
| I tried never ending solutions including Physical Therapy but
| nothing helped.
|
| But I finally got control over it by doing TWO things: 1. Reading
| 8 steps to a pain free back by Susan Adams and putting lessons in
| action right away. 2. Performing THORACIC MOBILITY WORK
|
| I can't speak for you but this CHANGED MY LIFE! I am back at it
| again with no pain. If you would like to read my experience
| dealing with the pain check out this thread
| https://twitter.com/mihirchronicles/status/12174493172015964....
| ravedave5 wrote:
| Exersizing and stretching your back is so important. * Edit -
| properly and with what works for you :)
| config_yml wrote:
| This. It's incredible.
|
| I've had back pain for about 2 years, up until recently. I
| did weekly physiotherapy for an extended amount of time until
| my doctor recommended neurodynamic exercises. It's basically
| focusing on stretching your nerves. I did that daily for 6
| weeks and my pain was mostly gone. When I feel it's coming
| back, I do the exercise maybe once a week and I'm good. On
| top of that I can now focus on improving core strength. It's
| a huge motivator knowing how bad it feels, but that you have
| it under control (which was a huuuge relief).
|
| Edit: my back pain was caused by bad posture, which was
| caused by pain from an untreated slightly ruptured
| intervertebral disc.
| [deleted]
| sjg007 wrote:
| How do you do neurodynamic stretching?
| gameswithgo wrote:
| I have back pain problems right now that go away only when I
| stop exercising and stretching. I found this out when I broke
| my ankle and couldn't do anything. Back pain gone!
| jeppebemad wrote:
| Sounds like you need to stretch correctly after exercising.
| I had the exact same experience, and it wasn't until I
| began focusing my stretching on my hamstrings that I saw
| immediate and significant relief. It's the holy grail to a
| back pain free life for me now.
| fhbdukfrh wrote:
| I love how everyone immediately goes to "you were doing it
| wrong". Gee thanks. It could also be you perform at a very
| high level and your body is aging, you have an underlying
| condition that had never had a chance to fully heal, or
| many other nuanced reasons.
| EpicEng wrote:
| So, in other words... he's doing it wrong. Perhaps
| "wrong" is "pushing too hard given age or some underlying
| condition", but the fact is that exercise and stretching
| should never make you worse off... assuming you're doing
| it correctly.
| EpicEng wrote:
| You were doing something horribly wrong. You'd be best
| server by figuring out what that was and continuing to
| exercise and stretch.
| knicholes wrote:
| In my weight training class, we always avoided the deadlift
| due to the high risk of injury. Now I'm in middle age and
| starting to feel back pain, I picked it up, and performing
| this exercise completely fixes my back pain.
| jniedrauer wrote:
| I did once throw out my back while deadlifting. It was
| completely preventable, but it turns out that the
| consequences were minimal. I've become a lot less worried
| about my back since then.
|
| It was the day after a hard 20 mile run, and I stupidly
| tried to deadlift my 1 rep max in that fatigued state.
| Something popped and I felt a sharp pain in my lower back.
| It hurt really badly for about 3 days, and made it
| difficult to put on socks and pants. And then it healed
| right up. No pain ever since, and I went right back to
| deadlifting.
| fhbdukfrh wrote:
| 3 days? I'm glad you got better but this is not a serious
| or chronic back injury under any definition.
| jniedrauer wrote:
| It was probably a back strain/sprain. Before going
| through that, I expected that a deadlifting injury would
| be debilitating and would take months to heal from. The
| reality was... different. That's my point.
| nitrogen wrote:
| Someone I know hurt their back during a deadlift. They
| were out of commission for months until they had surgery
| to shave a disk.
|
| So.. don't assume that your results are predictive of the
| results for everyone (typical mind fallacy/typical body
| fallacy?)
| matwood wrote:
| As an aside, there is almost zero reason to PR on any
| exercise unless it's for a competition. The risk of
| injury at a PR load is simply too high for recreation.
| Your 3RM is a good indicator where PR lies, and carries
| far less risk of injury.
|
| I'm saying this as someone who loves the dead lift and
| picking up heavy things.
| localhost wrote:
| I highly recommend watching this video by Jeff Cavaliere:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCDzSR6bW10 as a checklist
| of things to think about before attempting a deadlift.
|
| The key thing that he calls out in this and other videos is
| that most people do not have sufficient hamstring
| flexibility to safely deadlift off the ground (lack of
| flexibility will force your back out of a neutral position
| "rounding of the lower back"). There is certainly no shame
| in starting your deadlift from an elevated position by
| stacking plates underneath the barbell or pulling off rack
| pins while you work long-term on improving flexibility.
|
| I highly recommend watching any of his videos before
| attempting any exercise, even ones that you think you know
| how to do well, e.g., bench press :)
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Ok, I normally am very skeptical of youtube lifting, but
| actually these videos are pretty good...
| localhost wrote:
| Jeff is a strength and conditioning trainer (formerly
| with the Mets before becoming what looks like a full-time
| YouTuber). Ignore the click-bait titles and the fact that
| he doesn't wear a shirt - that's all part of the YouTube
| game. His content is consistently excellent.
| dkarl wrote:
| My experience exactly, although I can't narrow it down to
| the deadlift. I had occasional but regular low back pain
| starting in my early-to-mid twenties. There wasn't a
| consistent relationship with my level of activity or
| inactivity, the type of exercise I did, or with my weight,
| all of which fluctuated quite a lot over the years. Back
| pain was just something I got regularly, like colds or
| headaches. I've had virtually no back pain (other than
| muscle soreness and a couple of sports injuries) since I
| started lifting heavy weights, which is not the usual
| progression for somebody from their twenties to their
| forties.
|
| It's incredibly counterintuitive. Everyone's assumption, if
| they don't lift weights themselves, is that my case is some
| kind of weird exception or coincidence, and I can't really
| blame them. I have no idea how to explain that there's a
| good chance that they are misusing their back, and that
| they would be more comfortable sitting, standing, walking
| around, and lying down if they strengthened the muscles in
| their back. First of all, why in the world would we need to
| learn how to use our own bodies as adults; don't we figure
| this out as toddlers? And second of all, if we spend hours
| every day sitting down, hours every night lying down, and
| maybe hours every day walking around and jogging, why in
| the world would our backs not be strong enough to do those
| things safely and comfortably? Isn't doing something for
| hours at a time exactly the right signal to prepare your
| body for doing that thing?
|
| But it seems to be a very common experience for people who
| try lifting weights: they find that they are much more
| comfortable sitting at their desk at work and lying down in
| their bed at home if they lift heavy things on their feet
| at the gym. I wish I knew how to convince people to try it.
| tra3 wrote:
| > we always avoided the deadlift due to the high risk of
| injury
|
| But doing a deadlift properly is the most natural type of
| movement.
|
| Like lifting your child off the ground. Or putting a
| sandbag in the back of the truck. I've done thousands and
| thousands deadlifts with no injury.
|
| Can you provide a reference for your assertion?
| asdff wrote:
| Chances are you were lifting the toddler or sandbag with
| ho hum form. You aren't going to hurt yourself lifting 50
| pounds like that. You try ho hum form with 400lbs on a
| barbell and your body is not going to be very happy with
| you.
| pinopinopino wrote:
| Does ho hum mean bad? Couldn't really find it, just that
| it means routine/dull. But if good form, then I find it
| unlikely that you hurt yourself with 400lbs if you
| progressed to that.
| abcpassword wrote:
| You've got it backward. More people hurt themselves
| lifting weight around 50 than 400. It's easy to not
| consider form and pick up 50 pounds, rounding the back.
| Most people that can pull 4 plates seem to know what
| they're doing.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Deadlifts are so safe that... there are hundreds of
| deadlift safety tutorials on Youtube, where poor form and
| a bad instructor can cause irreversible damage very
| abruptly.
|
| Notice how this doesn't apply to jumping jacks or the
| plank.
|
| That you always have to couch the benefits of deadlifts
| in the "when done properly" disclaimer should be a hint
| as to what they're talking about. Hell, even lifting with
| one's legs instead of one's back comes so unnaturally to
| some that my refrigerator's box came with "lift with
| legs" instructions stamped onto it complete with a series
| of pictograms.
| matwood wrote:
| It's a common misconception about dead lifts. So common,
| that some 'experts' even say to avoid the dead lift. The
| problem, as you point out, is that lifting things from
| the ground is a common every day occurrence. Learning how
| to lift things properly and add some strength around that
| movement in fact lowers risk of injury.
| samatman wrote:
| I don't think it would make sense for the GP to provide a
| reference, for what is, after all, an anecdote about a
| class he took.
|
| As to whether the deadlift _in fact_ has a high risk of
| injury, it would seem he agrees with you (and myself, for
| what that 's worth): not really.
| ip26 wrote:
| Your PT didn't bring any of that up?
| mihirchronicles wrote:
| My PT didn't mention much about posture like the book did.
| The book covers a lot of detail on how to sit, sleep,
| stretch, lift, breath and other basic human activities. Sleep
| was a huge win because I would wake up with pain most of the
| time but the moment I learned how to sleep properly and put
| those lessons in action, I woke up without any pain. I was
| sore the first day (a good sign, IMO). It is sad that I am
| old enough but my body has forgotten to perform these basic
| activities.
|
| My PT did not mention anything about thoracic mobility
| exercises either. Book also covered chin tucks and shoulder
| rolls but it didn't stop there. These are some of the common
| exercises you find on internet and are recommended by mostly
| all of PTs. But when you are done with your sessions, there
| is no one to tell you at home about not exaggerating your
| neck while doing chin tucks. But the book did with amazing
| visuals.
|
| PT (4.5 yelp reviews) did lot of trial and error solutions
| focusing on strengthening and mobility exercises. Great, if
| something worked, otherwise continue trying different
| solutions.
|
| I also had to meet $1500 deductible for my insurance to cover
| these PT sessions but I could only afford 2 sessions a week.
| This point was not an obstacle but I wanted results from PT
| after 3-4 sessions to justify the cost which didn't happen to
| be the case for me.
| jcadam wrote:
| Yea, L5/S1 pain here for years. Finally started seeing a
| chiropractor.
|
| So far, I've gone from constant pain to occasional pain, so
| that's an improvement. I've had to make some lifestyle changes
| too. No more lifting with heavy free weights. No squats or
| deadlifts. Ah well.
| ceedan wrote:
| Have you tried mackenzie method stretches? I had L5/S1 disc
| bulge and pain for over a year. After a few days of Mackenzie I
| was pain free, and now use the stretches as needed but probably
| 4 times a week.
|
| I went to a Chiropractor for a few weeks but it never helped my
| lower back, but did help the upper back a bit.
| russellbeattie wrote:
| I have personally been involved with a woman who was almost
| killed by a chiropractor. The guy cracked her neck, did damage
| to the underlying veins, which caused a blot clot and a brain-
| stem stroke. She lost the ability to balance, loss of heat/cold
| detection, slightly droopy side of her face, and more. It
| nearly ruined her life and though she won a settlement, it was
| far lower than you'd think it'd be for such a huge loss of
| functionality.
|
| This of course is just anecdotal evidence, but it's 100% true
| (I'm not an anonymous dude on the Internet, this is my name,
| and I stand by my words). Do yourself a favor and stay as far
| away from chiropractors as you can. They're not doctors and
| what they do can have serious consequences.
| cprayingmantis wrote:
| Do yourself a favor and see a real doctor about it and try
| Physical Therapy. I always had my doubts about chiropractors
| but I tried one for a month and like you went from constant to
| occasional pain but never any better. I went to PT and they
| taught me exercises for my core and stretches that have me pain
| free to this day.
| jessaustin wrote:
| Also, "pain is a problem which is badly treated".
| searine wrote:
| Back pain is a tough nut primarily because it varies so much from
| person to person. Depending on the anatomy of the injury and the
| post-injury healing the symptoms and severity can change
| drastically.
|
| Sometimes the best prescription is time. Sometimes you need
| surgery to save yourself from paralysis. Sometimes surgery puts
| you in worse pain, sometimes it fixes you for the rest of your
| life. It's frustrating, and each patient needs to become their
| own best advocate.
| tmn wrote:
| Foundation Training provides amazing correction to our modern
| degenerative movement patters and poor posture.
| carpdiem wrote:
| No discussion of back pain is complete without mention of Stuart
| McGill (see, for example, his book "Back Mechanic" -
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01FKSGJYC/ ).
|
| He's a professor emeritus @ UWaterloo, and spent years studying
| the biomechanics of the back. As a consequence, he's developed
| exercise techniques (e.g., the "Big 3" - curl up / side plank /
| bird dog), and a host of diagnostic and treatment techniques for
| rehabilitating back injury, especially in athletes.
|
| I personally had a dynamic disk bulge that would leave me in bed,
| unable to move for a couple days at a time, and it was
| successfully and completely treated by his methods, leaving me
| completely pain free and in better shape than ever four years
| later (and I'm an extremely active person, spending ~10 hrs /
| week on various athletics).
| pgt wrote:
| Rock climbing in a gym (bouldering) cured all my back problems
| from sitting in front of a computer for 16 hours a day.
| metalliqaz wrote:
| So does everyone just have a subscription to the economist or are
| they working around the paywall somehow?
| overcast wrote:
| Pushups. Unless you're completely feeble or injured, do them,
| even if it's on your knees. Guaranteed to clear up the majority
| of back pain due to weak muscles.
|
| Also Yoga, I picked this up recently for a low impact workout.
| That shit will change your life, WAY harder than it looks.
| ceedan wrote:
| This is absolutely awful advice.
|
| Yes doing push ups with proper form will strengthen your core,
| but a lot of upper back pain is caused from tight pecs and
| lower delts which cause a hunch. Doing push ups would continue
| to tighten the pecs and contribute to back pain. They'd be
| counter productive for upper back pain, really.
|
| Most people would probably get more back pain relief by laying
| face down on the floor for 10 minutes rather than doing 10
| minutes of push ups.
| overcast wrote:
| Most people suffer from lower back pain, example all of us
| sitting here days on end at the computer. Obviously for upper
| back pain, working your upper back is not a great idea. My
| point here is that most back pain is related to our sedentary
| lifestyle, and simple pushups alleviate a lot of it.
| anthonypasq wrote:
| There is a zero percent chance making your chest stronger will
| fix your back
| overcast wrote:
| Pushups work much more than just your chest, particularly
| your core muscles, critical to everything including your
| back. Try just a static plank for ten minutes, and tell me
| what you feel.
| sebastianconcpt wrote:
| Back pain was what took me to start into lifting, workouts and
| bodybuilding.
|
| Too much coding trying a startup that never grew enough to go on.
| I shut down in 2015. It also got me into quite some overweight
| and then a couple of episodes of acute back pain.
|
| Pumping iron fixed that an a lot more.
| enimodas wrote:
| I had back pain for a couple of years, starting in my mid
| twenties. The worst of it was in the early morning in bed, it
| often woke me up. I already had an ergonomic office chair, did
| bodyweight exercises and cycling. Over the years I bought 3 or 4
| new mattresses. Doctors had no clue. Couple years later, when
| another horrible issue popped up, lots of tests and a couple
| doctors later, turns out I have ankylosing spondylitis and back
| pain that gets better with movement is an early symptom. Now I
| get prescribed physical therapy, as long as I do their exercises
| I don't have back pain. The main exercises are opposite arm and
| leg raise and the bridge. No luck so far with the chronic SI
| joint inflammation.
| scep12 wrote:
| Can you elaborate on this? What was the morning pain like? What
| exactly are the exercises you do?
| zaphod12 wrote:
| https://outline.com/zZhZLU
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