help for lower back pain

[Guest guest]

A year ago my back went "out" (I could barely

walk) and my chiropractor, horrified when I described

Ashtanga to him, told me that many yoga movements are bad

for the back. Well, I just kept on doing my practice

and the crisis passed. Now again my lower back is

very very sore -- recently the jumping in the vinyasa

and moving from upward to downward dog felt

particularly jarring and injurious so I've given myself a

week's rest -- and I am now living in the high Arctic,

far from the services of any chiropractor. What now?

Any advice is much appreciated, thanks.

[Guest guest]

A recent book "7 Steps to a Pain-Free Life" by

Robin McKenzie details 7 exercises for back pain and 7

for neck pain. They are very simple (flexion and

extension in lying, sitting and standing) but very

effective for acute and chronic back pain. These exercises

are really just applied therapeutic yoga. I could

also recommend books by Callan Pinckney (Callanetics

for Your Back) and Pete Egoscue (Pain Free). Some

useful tools for self-massage to the back are the Ma

Roller and the Thera Cane. If there's a massage

therapist around, that can be helpful. Everything you need

may also be part of an appropriate yoga practice. You

may need to rest your back, leave out some postures,

add some postures, modify some postures, move more

slowly, pay more attention, maybe have a completely

different appoach to yoga for a while. Check out Sam

Dworkis' website for some info about appropriate yoga

practice that may be very important for you:

<a href=http://extensionyoga.com target=new>http://extensionyoga.com</a><br>Good

luck and careful with that back!

[Guest guest]

I'd recommend reading Healing Back Pain by John

Sarno (does amazon deliver to the high arctic?). This

book gets praised occasionally by folks on this site.

I can't praise it enough because it got rid of my

aches and pains and gave me my body back. In most cases

you shouldn't have to go easy on your back (IMO, no

offense meant to mr slade); your back should be able to

do vinyasa and anything else you want it to. I have

given this book to a number of people and most of them

have found relief from their back and other pain with

it. <br>good luck

[Guest guest]

"(no offense to mr. slade)" None taken, thank

you. Good to have lots of ideas to consider. Sarno is

very interesting, but so far I'm not sure I've figured

out where he is coming from. I got a copy of Healing

Back Pain about 6 months ago (after the book was

mentioned here a bunch). I didn't carefully study it or

read it cover to cover, but I did read a lot of it

(and have just now reread a lot of it). He makes the

point that most musculoskeletal pain is caused by

tension and that the tension is caused by repressed

emotions. He seems to discount any physical cause of pain.

And he seems to be saying that this pain can be cured

by just simply realizing that it may be caused by

repressed emotions. He actually says that most pain (and he

seems to include almost any condition you can name) can

be cured just by reading his book. Not by doing

anything the book says to do, just by reading it. Maybe I

can believe this theoretically. Since the body and

mind are interconnected, you can work on any of it

from any angle (you can heal your mind by working on

your body or vice-versa). But it has always made more

sense to me to start working on physical problems at

the physical level. Yoga asana practice is one of the

best ways I have come across to to do this work (talk

about some physical work on the physical body), but

there are many ways and they all involve physical work

(stretching, strengthening, massage, movement).

Musculo-skeletal tension, whatever the cause, can become very

deepset, and I'm not sure if Sarno acknowledges this. His

"cure" seems too easy. Also, it is worth keeping in mind

that many very painful acute conditions will often

"cure themselves" anyway. And yes, often it is better

to go about normal activities (promoting

circulation) rather than resting (promoting atrophy). Anyone

should be able to tell for themselves if they are

pushing into pain. Also, the body can "armor" itself to

cover up chronic conditions.<br>Sarno still makes me

think, so I'll keep reading him, but he hasn't been one

of the healers I've trusted so far. Perhaps his ways

would not work for me only because I don't believe in

them (yet?). I'll probably have to do thousands of

hours of yoga and other physical therapy instead. I

don't recommend Sarno's book, but it certainly wouldn't

hurt to read it and it seems to have helped many

people, which is a good thing. Would be interested in

hearing more ideas/opinions on John Sarno.

[Guest guest]

Some time ago I got a book called "Tiger Feeling"

from Benita Cantieni. She is suisse and has developed

exercices for the development of the muscles of the pelvic

floor.<br>I've had the best experiences with the exercices from

this book. The basic idea is to give back to the

pelvic floor his former ability of "carrying" the whole

body and to lengthen the spine between pelvic floor

and top of your head. This is the same idea, of

course, as in most of the asanas and some of her

exercices are modified Yoga postures.<br>As I have

difficulties even in describing the basics of the "sensual

pelvic floor training", as she calls it, in English, I

would recommend to get an english copy of the book (I

hope it is available) or of the following one "Tiger

feeling garantiert".

[Guest guest]

I agree with the advice given by TLSlade in post

7791. Do a few preliminary exercises specifically

designed for back problems, then do fewer asanas but be

very selective which asanas you choose,move more

slowly and perhaps a consider an approach to hatha yoga

more sympathetic to back problems.<br><br>The catalyst

that drew me to yoga many years ago was a severe back

problem, the result of two car accidents within a year.

After my doctor prescribed a short series of exercises,

I experienced a period of rapid improvement but

after a couple of months the rate of improvement

declined. By that time, I was well enough to start taking

yoga classes. The teacher was a Sikh and his approach

was quite similar to the Ashtanga Vinyassa in terms

of sequence and its emphasis on developing prana.

There was jumping from asana to asana but not as much.

The main differences were a much slower pace and an

emphasis on different forms of pranayama. I practiced

almost daily and after a while, the back problems

disappeared but would reappear if I reduced my practice.

Switching to Iyengar for a while might be

beneficial.<br><br>Good luck.<br><br>Omprem

[Guest guest]

Hi TL Slade,<br>You misunderstood Sarno because

he very clearly does not discount physical pain. He

also does not say that the pain is caused by repressed

emotions.<br><br>You have to read the book carefully. He says that the

brain send a message (to what he has discovered to be

mostly certain areas in the back) that shuts off

circulation in that area - and this can cause severe pain. It

is a simple defense mechanism like any other. The

pain will distract you from other awarenesses that are

new and unfamiliar or upsetting or painful. He

teaches people to refocus their attention. He also

discovered that certain 'injuries' assumed to always cause

serious pain actually don't always cause pain. He found,

for example, people who had been living with spinal

abnormalities like herniated discs and never knew

it.<br><br>This is an oversimplification, but he talks about how

insulting it is to people living with chronic pain when

they are told that the pain is psychological and

perhaps a way to avoid doing things they don't want to

do. There is a subtle but important difference in his

approach that distinguishes his work from psychological

healers.<br><br>Also, he talks about how in our society we are

conditioned to believe that backs are easily injured and

somehow fragile and that a person can cause serious

permanent damage if they aren't really careful about their

backs when in fact our backs are very sturdy and

degeneration is normal.<br><br>FBL

[Guest guest]

<< Also, he talks about how in our society

we are conditioned to believe that backs are easily

injured and somehow fragile and that a person can cause

serious permanent damage if they aren't really careful

about their backs when in fact our backs are very

sturdy and degeneration is normal. >><br><br>Well,

I have not read Sarno's book, but I guess it might

also depend on how strong your back muscles actually

are. If the muscles along your dorsal spine are weak,

of course your back will be easily injured and

fragile, and you will have to be careful. Although, as you

say, degeneration is normal and also inevitable, it

will occur much faster in a weak

back.<br><br>Fortunately, most postures in yoga focus on strengthening just

that part of the body.

[Guest guest]

I am referring to the spine itself not the

muscles which vary dramatically from person to person.

For instance, most people don't realize that the

vertabrae are quite deep and in the neck extend 3-4" in,

nearly to the back of the trachea - the rest of the

spine as well does sit quite deeply into the body and

not just along the surface of the back and neck. It

is very sturdy.<br><br>Sarno says that trauma in

life always manifests itself physically AND/OR

emotionally. A physical manifestation of trauma is not a sign

of weakness as is commonly believed in our

society.<br><br>He also says that although back pain (TMS) might

last a few days of a week, what remains is fear of

further injury and the person resrticts activity and

becomes preoccupied with their body, and this is more

debilitating than the pain itself. "Oh, I can't do that, I

have a bad back..."<br><br>And, Sarno says that

strengthening muscles in the back is fine, but generally does

nothing to stop or protect you from the pain associated

with TMS (Tension Myositis Syndrome) Many people who

do all kinds of 'excercises' still have pain. He

does say that excercise and regular movement might

help the person break their fear of physical movement

and it is always good anyway and never bad.

<br><br>So, if having a 'strong' back will protect you from

'injury' or pain, why do people like professional athletes

and yogis have serious back

'problems'?<br><br>Signed,<br>An Anonymous Screen Name

[Guest guest]

I think that in some people the spine can be

quite vulnerable to bad posture. In my case, when I was

a teenager I had to spend several months in a back

brace to fix vertabrae in my lower back which had begun

to crack. The cause of this was simply bad posture

putting stress on my lower back. Fortunately the brace

fixed the problem and studying karate for a few years

afterwards fixed my posture.<br><br>One thing I was told at

the time was that arching the back can be very

stressful on the lower back, at least for people like me.

If my lower back were to bother me now I would

approach all backbends with caution.<br><br>Bipedalism,

for all its evolutionary advantages, can be tricky to

manage successfully. Of course yoga is a wonderful tool

for this, especially if you are mindful to apply what

you learn on the mat to the rest of your life.