Back pain is a massive subject in medical knowledge which makes back pain and its diagnosis very difficult. It is easy to blame your GP for not knowing much about your back pain, but the fact is that you are in a better place to understand why you have backache that they do.
This is because backache that is not congenital or due to a specific accident, illness or series of medications is normally due to bad posture and that means lifestyle changes.
For instance, I am heavy and have just begun having back pain. My doctor could see my size and recommended that I lose weight. We all know that that is not going to happen over night and so did he, so he gave me a prescription for 20 tablets a day and his assistant gave me a massage and an jab in the posterior.
I waited and waited until the tablets ran out and I felt no better. It would have been easy to say that the doctor was of no use and, to be honest, his quick fix tablets were useless, but his advice was spot on. I lost eight kilos (20 pounds) over a week or so and could stand up straight again.
Now, I still have back pain, but I know that I can afford to lose another 20 pounds, although the actual compulsion – the debilitating twenty-four hour pain – has passed, which will make it harder for me to concentrate on losing more weight.
That is not the GP’s fault, it is mine.
We live in a society where we expect a tablet to cure us and some doctors pander to this culture (like mine did). Regrettably, fifteen minutes with the medical doctor and a handful of pills will not cure all our ills. Sometimes, we have to comprehend that we are our own worst enemies and hold our hands up.
This is not to say that doctors are always correct. I have a friend who has had debilitating back pain for thirty years and had to give up work early. His wife left him too because she could no longer cope. He sits at home alone most days very lonely.
When I told him that I had obtained relief from massage, he told me that his medical doctor had told him 20 years ago that neither massage nor acupuncture could help him, so he has never tried them.
You could say that my friend ought to have tried them anyway and I would agree with you, but he believed, and still believes, his medical doctor.
It is a real shame when individuals close their minds off to things that they know too little of so they are not able to make a sensible decision. It has cost my friend 30 years of mobility and his best friend.
Bob Dylan said it best when he said:
‘Come mothers and fathers Throughout the land And don’t criticize What you can’t understand Your sons and your daughters Are beyond your command Your old road is Rapidly agin’. Please get out of the new one If you can’t lend your hand For the times they are a-changin’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCWdCKPtnYE
there is a lesson there for a lot of us, I think.
Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on a range of topics, but is now involved with sciatica pain management. If you would like to know more, please go to our web site at Sore Back Remedies