Good News About Bad Backs

You bend over to pick up something, and suddenly you are doubled over in pain, unable to straighten up. Or you shovel snow, take a long drive, sit through a tense business meeting. In dozens of ways, backaches begin. They happen to almost everyone.

The pain may be sudden and excruciating, or constant and nagging. Four out of five people have back pain of some sort at least once in their lives. For each of these back sufferers, there are two problems: how to stop today’s pain, and how to avoid tomorrows. The answers are different now from what they were a few years ago. Here’s what some leading back specialists are saying:

“Don’t just do something- lie there!”

According to Dr. Robert J. your backache will probably cure itself- if you let it. Most backaches go away in a few days. Thus new cures keep making headlines because anything you do during that time will seem to work.
Lying on your back with pillows under your knees, or lying on your side with knees bent, will probably feel most comfortable. A heating pad may help so may aspirin. But aspirin is as god as any for relieving pain and reducing inflammation.

Your back -the spinal column and the muscles that support it-is an extraordinary piece of engineering, but it can develop glitches over time or with mistreatment. Most back pain comes from muscles that are strained or, worse yet, knotted into spasms.

The spine itself is a graceful S curve made up of 33 vertebrae. Though their hollow center runs a bundle of nerves, the spinal cord. The vertebrae are connected by joints that can become arthritic. Between the vertebrae, acting as a cushion, are the spinal discs. The outer rim of one of these discs may eventually become dry and brittle, and with some pressure, the jellylike inside- the nucleus of the disc- can squeeze out or “rupture.” It may then press on a branch of the sciatic nerve that stretches down into leg, causing pain or numbness.

Often with bed rest, the inflammation around the disc subsides. Occasionally, surgery is needed.

Some doctors inject chymopapain, a natural substance from the papaya plant that breaks down the ruptured material. Like traditional surgery, however, it has its risks.

For those patients who do not need it, there’s microsurgery, with a smaller incision and the removal of just the ruptured material. Also being explored is needle-suction surgery, to siphon off the ruptured material with scarcely any incision at all. Then there is the classic disc surgery, removing all of the nucleus and any loose fragments of the rim.

Most doctors recommend exercising-but only when you are at least 80 percent recovered from your back attack. To begin, they usually prescribe a daily, ten minutes regimen of partial sit-ups with legs bent, and knee to chest exercises, designed to make your back muscles more flexible and your abdominal muscles stronger so they can take a load off your back.

There are doctors who worry about the occasional patient whose condition could be aggravated by manipulation, and they are skeptical of its long term benefits. Yet there is a new tolerance for patients who seek short-term relief through manipulation. Indeed, some doctors do it in their own offices, believing there is something about caring, touching, massaging that is helpful. Dr john Sanro believes that most backaches, like ulcers and migraine headaches, are influenced by emotions, called tension myositis syndrome. It begins with hidden tensions and unexpressed emotions that make your blood vessels constrict, interfering with oxygen supply, to certain muscles and nerves and so causing terrible pain; fear of what’s happening to your body leads to more pain.
There is a growing awareness of the link between emotions and backaches. Doctors wonder whether the back pain causes depression or the depression brings on back pain. Either way, if depression is a factor the exercises that tone up your muscles can also tune up your mind.

“The newest thing in backaches is the educated patient.” So the most important lesson is how you think about your back and yourself. As a back sufferer, you can feel helpless, like a semi-invalid, fearful of doing even the simplest thing. Or armed with knowledge, you can do something about your problem.