A remarkable event occurred in my life this week. I weeded my overgrown flower garden. I dug up a perennial and moved it to a sunnier location. (I know. I know. The Green Thumbs are wagging saying, You should wait until autumn to do that.) Never mind. Given the standard state of neglect reigning in my patch of Earth any TLC is as welcome as a whiff of freshly-baked bread.
Not only did I pull and dig and remove the offending growth with a wheelbarrow, I was able to walk--upright--back into the house at the end of the day.
Let me "back" up. Three months ago I would not have been able to achieve that level of normal function. As I edged (aged) into my sixties, my lower back pain had ratcheted up in step; two hours of manual labour would put me on the couch for the rest of that day and probably another as well, devouring Advil, with a heating pad cranked up to High against my lumbar region. My doctor ordered x-rays that showed degenerative disc disease and sent me to physiotherapy. The PT pooh-poohed that phrase, said there is no such disease, it is only normal wear and tear and ordered exercise. I went back to my heating pad.
The good news is the PT was right. The bad, of course, is that it took me way too long to accept her verdict and get down on the floor and do the exercises. My epiphany occurred while listening to an interview on CBC Radio with American journalist and author Cathryn Jackobson Ramin who, after a long tale of woe about back pain similar to my own--except she also had unsuccessful spinal surgery--investigated the "back industry" and wrote a book called Crooked, Outwitting the Back Pain Industry and Getting On the Road to Recovery. I do not regret immediately ordering it online and reading it late into the night, nodding all along the way. In fact, if my e-reading device develops dog-eared edges it will be Ms. Ramin's fault. She also has a very informative website: www.cathrynjacobsonramin.com which she updates as new information becomes available.
The book details, among other things, her discovery of University of Waterloo professor of spine biomechanics Stuart McGill and his simplification, explanation and demonstration of the Big Three exercises needed to maintain a healthy, functioning back. He has a very slick website (www.backfitpro.com) which frankly worried me a little with its slickness. On offer are courses, books, videos, testimonials and lumbar supports for purchase. Not to worry though. There is no need to set up an account or purchase material and there are helpful You Tube videos of the essential exercises.
I won't try to explain the exercises here but they are simple to perform and take a total of six minutes. I timed myself. It's a good idea to review the video occasionally because I just realized I should fine-tune my technique on a couple of them. But the most important technique is: Do Them Every Day. Dr. McGill likens it to brushing your teeth. Just because you brush your teeth one day and they are clean does not mean you don't get up and brush them again the next morning. Now I do my exercises right after I brush my teeth.
There are many good points that I took away from the book and it is important to remember that Ms. Ramin's experiences and research took place in the United States (as well as investigating innovative practitioners and programs from Europe, Australia and Canada) under a medical system that based much of the medical profession's remuneration on the number of diagnostic tests and surgical interventions. Counselling lifestyle changes, while the most effective solution in the majority of cases, did not generate revenue for doctors.
Two of the scariest outcomes for many American back-pain sufferers were unsuccessful surgery (not only did the surgery not relieve patients' symptoms, many were significantly worse afterward i.e. in more pain than before surgery); added to this was a breakdown in the evidence-based system for approval of opioid drugs, causing many back-surgery "failures" to become addicted and unable to function in their jobs, families etc.
We can be thankful for our Canadian health care system in that we avoided the American scenario. However, physiotherapy is not free and many health benefit plans either do not cover it or provide limited access. Luckily ongoing PT (or x-rays or chiropractic interventions, for that matter) should not be required in the journey to back health. Doing the back-strengthening exercises every day, not sitting more than three hours in a row ever (admittedly difficult to avoid in our sedentary, screen-oriented, lengthy-commute environment) and dropping the avoidance behaviour that we all thought would save our backs, seems to be the way to go.
So get back out there: weed your garden; carry your own groceries; move regularly. And maybe avoid Dr. Oz's advice. He did not fare well in the book. Next I'm going to enrol in the neighbourhood Tai Chi class and attempt to learn all 108 poses. Memory work as well!
