When I was twenty-five, living in Massachusetts, I was whipping down an icy cross country ski trail near my apartment one day when a deeply rutted, frozen track diverted my left ski, threw me completely off balance, and resulted in a fairly spectacular crash. Unfortunately, I was not clued in to chiropractic medicine at that point, so I gave my severely wrenched back some bed rest, and then simply suffered along as well as I could for a year or so. When Richard and I moved to California, we qualified for Medi-Cal for a brief period, and one of the benefits was that I could see a chiropractor twice a week. My back had been getting progressively worse, especially since the job I landed involved a great deal of typing, which is hard on the lower back, and I had been taking muscle relaxants and pain medication to deal with it. I hated the groggy way they made me feel, and the chemical hangover felt yukky, too. Not to mention the fact that they didn’t help in terms of helping me to become stronger or more active.

 

By then, I had learned more about chiropractic, so I thought I might as well give it a try, especially since I had these two visits a month available to me with my plan. I was lucky in that the practitioner I saw was very good, and the pain relief that I experienced after my very first adjustment was both immediate and amazing! In fact, I felt so good that I went white water rafting that weekend, with the river conservation group that Richard was working for. Because I had such a good experience, I kept receiving chiropractic care for my back from then on, which has definitely helped me to have less back and neck pain in my life overall; although nothing ever approached that initial treatment in terms of immediate relief. And because I was athletic and ended up doing both construction and a lot of desk work, I continued to have low back issues off and on.

 

At one point, a friend turned me onto a set of exercises in a book by an actor who supposedly learned them from a guy in Nepal who rehabbed back injuries sustained from parachuting accidents. That seemed like a compelling background! The exercises were simple and didn’t take all that long—ten minutes at the most—and they, in combination with regular chiropractic care, helped even more. I did them religiously, pretty much every day for years and years, which always helped to keep back pain at bay.

 

And then one day about two or three years ago, my back totally went south. I had just completed an aggressive round of remodeling, which included hand-plastering the walls of our home office and helping a 6’4 builder friend move a 200 lb. desk, and all my usual tricks didn’t help me to heal this time. Getting chiropractic adjustments sent my low back muscles into spasm, rather than helping, the way they always had in the past. I literally could not lift more than 5 lbs without pain. Even walking hurt. I couldn’t stand for more than a few minutes at a time. Resting didn’t help; a couple of weeks of taking it very easy didn’t make me feel any better at all. I started to feel panicked, wondering if this was the way I was going to feel for the rest of my life.

 

Fortunately, at this point, I had health insurance through my husband’s employment. So I was able to get 12 visits with a physical therapist. I had heard and read that most back surgeries didn’t help ease back pain and sometimes could make it worse (though I had also talked to some friends and family it did help; but they were in the minority), so I wasn’t interested in going that route. I figured PT would certainly be worth a try. Thankfully, it ended up not only helping my current situation, it apparently helped my back so much that I eventually found I didn’t need to do my back exercises every day in order to keep my back in good shape.

 

There were three issues, I think, that the physical therapy addressed:

 

One, they had a very talented practitioner who performed extremely gentle, but amazingly effective osteopathic-style adjustments. I think that the chiropractic care I had received was too aggressive for this particular injury, and I think that this woman had some tricks up her sleeve that effected adjustments that my chiropractor was unable to make. If your skeleton is out of alignment, it can be very difficult to heal an injury, as muscles become both overly stretched and shortened, which causes pain. So, perhaps for the first time since my cross country ski accident, I found someone who was able to heal the full extent of my injuries that were related to alignment.

 

Two, it was explained to me that traumatized muscle groups will sometimes shut themselves off in an effort to protect themselves from more overuse. Other muscle groups will take over, but in the long run, this isn’t a good solution. My physical therapist told me that when the more delicate muscles of the lower back switch off, the bigger, more powerful muscles take over and that this can actually weaken the back over time. So he and his crew helped me to do exercises that would switch the proper muscle groups back on (those known as “the core”). (The only bummer to this turned out to be that some of these muscles had more or less atrophied over time, so that I had to start over with extreme baby steps in both bicycling and Rollerblading. And the two didn’t complement each other well, evidently. I’ve had to rehab them separately and not cross-train.)

 

Three, they gave me exercises that would strengthen and limber up my back without hurting it, at a rate that was just right. It was nice to have the confidence that I had while working with them, knowing that they would make sure I didn’t re-injure myself.

 

Given the fact that our upright bipedalism isn’t without its issues, and given how important our backs are to our overall health, it makes sense to take good care of them throughout our lives. There are a number of preventative steps we can all take to minimize injury. These are the ones I’ve found to be the most helpful over the thirty some-odd years I’ve dealt with chronic and recurrent low back pain:

 

1.  Get adjusted regularly, but especially after a fall, or other physical mishap. Chiropractors, osteopaths, and physical therapists can all perform adjustments of the spine and other bone groups.

 

2.  Regular massage of any kind is helpful, too—it keeps muscles relaxed and spasm-free.

 

3.  Use good ergonomics when standing, sitting, working at a computer, or pursuing any other task, especially ones that you do regularly and for long periods of time. Pay attention to any asymmetry in your physical activities and try to compensate for any that you notice. For example, if you’re right-handed, make an effort to learn to do certain tasks with your left hand. If you always use your left foot to take your first step or step up on a curb, use your right foot sometimes. Weight training can help with this as well.

 

 

 

5.  Walk regularly. This keeps your back strong and limber.

 

6.  Be careful not to sleep on your stomach if you suffer from low back pain. This can make it worse.

 

7.  Anti-inflammatory sports creams such as Traumeel feel very nice and help to reduce pain and swelling. There are also ones that stimulate blood flow to the area, such a Boswellin cream. You can try both and see which type you prefer.

 

8.  If you’ve wrenched your back, apply ice in the same way you would to any other strain or sprain. But if your back is tight from primarily stress and tension, heat might work better. Do not, however, apply heat to a sprain or strain; you’ll only increase swelling and pain.

 

9.  Bioenergetics makes a number of homeopathic drops that I’ve found helpful in various situations: Spasm, Inflammation, Body Mend, and Back Ache. You can order these by phone at 1-800-334-4043.

 

10. If your back is in spasm, the following essential oils mixed no more than 6 drops to one teaspoon of carrier oil (such as sweet almond oil), can be very soothing: mandarin (probably the best), tarragon, lavender, clary sage, fennel, and chamomile. You can order medicinal quality essential oils from Original Swiss Aromatics.

 

11. When you’ve hurt your back, the following can help to rest it and relieve pain. Get a chair set up somewhere with some space in front of it, lie down on the floor, and prop your legs up on the seat of the chair with your butt close to the legs. Basically, it’s like you’re sitting, except that you’re 90 degrees to a seated position, with your legs on the seat instead of your butt, and your back on the floor instead of your feet. Try it! You might be surprised how soothing this is.

 

12. Never lift anything heavy above your waist. And when you lift anything of any weight, be sure to engage your core muscles first and use your legs, not your back.

 

13. Don’t sit too long at a time. Get up and move around and stretch if your work involves a lot of face time with a computer or any other activity that involves sitting.

 

14. Check with your health care provider if you have any concerns or questions concerning the health of your lower back.