Say Goodbye To Back Pain

By Ranjan Venkatesan

Every year, nearly 50% of the adult population worldwide will experience at least one episode of back pain.

The problem with back pain is that it comes back again and again with increasing severity.

In 10% of cases the pain persists for months, or even years.

Back pain is one of the leading causes of absenteeism at work and disability. 

Say Goodbye To Back Pain helps you to find out the cause for your back pain and to select the right treatment based on an informed decision. 

Follow to steps outlined in this book to get rid of your  back pain and prevent it from coming back. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ranjan Venkatesan
• Release date: Jul 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201597078

Book preview

PROLOGUE

HI! Welcome to one of the commonest health problems on earth. At my age (and I have batted for a good many decades now) hardly a day goes by when someone or the other does not complain of back pain. It is a popular conversation starter and a condition that everyone seems to empathize with. Even if you, dear reader, have never suffered from back pain (HOW LUCKY CAN ONE GET!!) you must know someone who has or had an attack of back pain.

The problem with back pain is that it comes back (excuse the pun please!) again and again with increasing severity.  In a few of us the pain may persist for months or even years despite numerous treatments, including surgery. It can affect our work and our daily routines to such an extent that we begin to live in perpetual fear of suffering another attack of back pain that could leave us bed-ridden. Wouldn’t it be wonderful therefore if we could say goodbye to back pain and be able to carry on with our lives as before?

YES YOU CAN, provided you have access to the right information and are able to understand how back pain occurs. Unfortunately, although tons of material are available from an infinite number of sources, none of them provide a substantial review of current thinking on the subject for the ordinary lay person or a unified approach to the management of back pain. Newspaper or magazine articles or even books on back pain discuss a variety of options and then leave it to you and me to make up our mind as to which course of action to follow. To add to the confusion, we get anecdotes about wonder cures from friends, relatives and just about anybody who happens to be around. At the end of it all, the vast majority of us simply soldier on, clutching at various therapies, in the vain hope that one day something will work and we will be all right.     

The very fact that you are reading this book is proof enough that you are not satisfied with the truckloads of information on back pain available on the Internet, television, newspapers and magazines.

Many of us go through life harbouring conditions without knowing what caused them and how they should be managed. Back pain is no exception. A major advantage of reading this book is that you will now know precisely why you have backache and how to tackle it. You will be able to hold an intelligent, informed discussion with your therapist or physician, review the different treatment options available and make the right decisions.

There are no holds barred in this book. Each treatment has been discussed and dissected in full to appraise you of what is good for your back, which treatments are a waste of time and money and which ones are positively harmful.

A major advantage of this book is that you can select the treatment and/ or management based on an informed decision to suit YOU and YOUR condition. You can prepare an action plan with the information given here that will be specific for your back pain. You will be able to confront your pain directly and attack its root cause rather than suffering in silence. You will be able to take preventive action to ensure that your back pain never comes back. Once you understand what is causing your back pain, the flow chart suggested in this book should enable you to take control of your back pain and GET RID OF IT, ONCE AND FOR ALL.

Go on and turn the page to get a better and healthier back and start a new pain-free life.

CHAPTER 1

Some Facts and Figures

Every year, nearly 50% of the adult population worldwide will experience at least one episode of back pain. Up to 80% of all adults have at least one episode of low back pain in their lifetime. This information is certainly not going to cheer you up. However, one thing is definite – you are not alone in your agony. There are millions upon millions of back pain sufferers just like you and me.

Most of these back pain episodes are temporary in character (also known as acute back pain) and we hardly ever see a doctor unless we are really in agony or totally incapacitated. Two thirds of low back pain sufferers get well and go back to work within 1 – 2 weeks and about 90% within 2 months. The remaining 10% will tend to become chronic and have pain and disability lasting beyond 3 months.

The problem is, as I have said earlier, that back pain has a high recurrence rate. Once you have had severe back pain, the likelihood of it striking again is increased fourfold. Each recurrence increases the likelihood of a new one. This is why half the adult population suffers from low back pain yearly.

Women and backache

Women are equally, if not more, prone to suffer from backaches than men. It has been found that:

The annual incidence of back pain amongst women is more than 40%, i.e. nearly half the female population in the world suffers from at least one attack of back pain per year.

There are more women than men in the youngest and oldest age groups.

All age groups are affected. A third of 16–24-year-olds complain of back pain and nearly half among those aged 45-64 years.

Men are much more likely to have a short, sudden attack while women's back pain tends to last longer than men.

Women are more likely than men to reduce their activity due to back pain.

Investigations  

The introduction of modern diagnostic tools such as computerized tomography (CT) scan and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has added to the confusion. These investigative procedures have not only increased the possibility of obtaining a specific diagnosis but have also led to an increase in the number of tests showing a false positive diagnosis i.e., there is evidence of an abnormality in the spine but the person undergoing the test does not necessarily have symptoms nor does he or she require any radical treatment.

It has been estimated that if you pick ten adults at random from the street and do an MRI scan on them, three out of the ten would have some abnormal finding in the spine even though none of them may have ever complained of low back pain. Even if they did have back pain in the past, the abnormal finding may not be responsible for the pain. These three therefore do not require medical treatment.

Research papers have shown even greater false positive rates. Yet quite a few doctors would err on the side of caution and prescribe medical or alternative treatments or worse still, operate on such individuals and make them invalids for life. Undoubtedly, CT and MRI scans have led to an increase in back surgery and other invasive procedures.  Any surgical procedure, if done without proper reason, apart from being unnecessary, is a total waste of time and money and may actually increase back pain. Furthermore, you must remember that no surgery, however minor or minimal, is without risk of serious complications and/ or death. I know of many people who have died from the simplest of procedures at the hands of very eminent and skilled surgeons. In each case the surgeon had assured the patient that he/ she would be home and dry in a few hours.

Treatments

Since there is, very rarely, a definitive diagnosis for anyone complaining of severe low back pain, a plethora of therapies are available from practitioners of allopathic, homeopathic and other complementary medicine streams. Pharmaceutical companies come up with new pain killers almost every month while medical device manufacturers are making hay while the sun shines with a vast array of back massage chairs and beds. The Chinese medical device industry has been quick to latch on to this most common of all human problems, being amongst the largest producers and sellers of cheap back massage chairs. Not only this, they also excel in selling vast quantities of neck and lumbar pillows, acupressure slippers and massage oils and creams. Furniture sellers are not far behind in this lucrative business game. Everyone is now making ergonomic chairs regardless of whether or not they know what it means. Water beds, foam beds and coir beds are fighting for customers, each one proclaiming that it is the best remedy for low back pain. Massage parlours, body spas, yoga centres and holistic treatment clinics are having a field day and there are plenty of customers for everyone.

Orthopedic surgeons have not lagged behind in this rush to make money. There is a five-fold difference in the rates of back surgery in the developed as compared to developing countries. From straightforward open back surgery, we have now progressed to keyhole surgery and artificial discs to replace damaged discs (Don’t panic! We will learn in the next chapter as to what a disc is). Surgeons are into plastic surgery to replace broken spinal bones and a huge variety of injections to the spine to reduce pain. Anyone with the slightest hint of the spine being off curve is put under the knife.

Personally, I used to dread going to an orthopod (short form for orthopedic surgeon). The number of times I was told that I need an operation is equal to the number of times I have walked out of the consulting room vowing never to go back in again. My spinal X-rays and scans indicate that I have a slipped disc in my lower spine and an abnormal curvature of the spine to one side (called scoliosis) and despite the fact that my symptoms were not severe enough, surgeon after surgeon recommended that surgery should be done sooner than later. Fifteen years have gone by since my first episode of back pain. I have had a couple of recurrences but none at all for the past seven years since I started practicing all that I have written in this book. My slipped disc seems to have healed and the scoliosis (Sorry! I will explain what it means later on) which I may have had since birth does not bother me at all. Ever since I found out exactly what to do for my back pain I have felt totally in control and do not fear an orthopod visit anytime. You will be the same once you have gone through this book.

Why is back pain so common amongst humans?

I have never heard of an animal suffering from back pain the way we do (unless it has a disease of the backbone). One probable reason is the fact that we have decided to stand upright on two legs even though anatomically our backbone has not evolved simultaneously to that extent, and therefore is not designed for an erect posture and for weight bearing. Just one look at the structure of the spine – which consists of a series of bone blocks placed one above the other and curved in four places – will make anyone wonder as to how this delicate sinuous structure could even support the weight of an adult weighing 70 kg