INTENSE BACK PAIN: THE NATURAL ROOT TO RELIEF 30/11/2016
Backs are not my specialty but I’m an expert because for most of my life I have had “the pain”, like no other pain, lumbar and cervical. A fall from the hayloft when I was a child began this odyssey of suffering and limitation. 65 years later I running and jumping and operating a moderately large chain saw because the Good Lord told me what to do.
Simply sleep with a 4 inch plastic pipe (6” is better) or 4×6 beam under your mattress. No, not pillows under your back, they will pop out and leave you in a worse condition. The pipe should be under your mattress at the level of your mid-drift or umbilicus. It doesn’t matter if you sleep on your side, back or belly. But don’t lie there unless you will sleep.
Too simple and silly, right? Okay I will give you a money back guarantee that within 1 week you will be symptom free and mobile. Still don’t be stupid about bending with or without weights.
Why does it work? 1) Cartilage and ligaments have relatively little blood supply thru small arterials. These have very little blood pressure. They can be easily squashed and then you get hypoxia. When any tissue, in this instances the annulus fibrosa, (disc) is threatened with death from inadequate blood supply, it screams. “I’m dying you fool, do something quick”
2. The vertebral muscles respond the only way they can, by going into spasm to stabilize the vertebral column which is the source, as far as they can figure, of the problem. (They may not be very smart but they can lift about 3000 lbs.) In spasm they crush your disc (which is acting as the fulcrum of a lever) like an overripe chestnut and that hurts like heck. It only make the problem worse (muscles never were very bright) by increasing the pressure on the tiny blood vessels in the disc which then screams even louder. “No, not that way you idiot. Don’t you see you are cutting off our blood supply so we are weaker and squeezing us so that we herniate? This results in a small bulge which pushes on a nerve root. It thinks there is a real problem down the arm or leg somewhere so it really screams, “The leg is going to drop off and then how are we going to get home? Hey anyone awake upstairs? Don’t you think you should do something real quick?”
3. Then your mind goes into high gear trying to figure this out until you are beside yourself (funny expression. I never could do it. I was usually in front of myself and getting in the way) with distress and confusion. So you yell in anger and despair. “What’s the matter with doctors these days? Can’t they even relieve pain?”
So all your friends and family gather around and make sympathetic noises. They make tearful, (“Oh my poor boy are you alright?) suggestions with really interesting remedies like liniment of frog’s tails. Your maiden aunt Matilda whispers in your ear. “Use it sparingly and only at midnight with a full moon. My old granny swore by it. Mind you she put brandy in it. When she finished off the bottle her pain was magically gone”.
Finally when they can take your suffering no more because in empathy it gives them pain also, they make you get up. Their intention is to walk you to the car so they can take you to the nearest hospital emergency 50 miles away over rough roads. You are trying to cooperate and really not complain because you know this will cost-a-lot.
“I would walk if I could but even closing my eyes make my back go into stronger spasm. Just let me lay and I will stop moaning, (and to yourself, I’ll be dead from total person pain and then you will be sorry”)
“Call an ambulance somebody. Look he’s becoming unconscious. Is there a doctor in the house” or plane. (I am reluctant to respond because I know they will laugh at me for suggesting a 4 inch plastic pipe
The muscles do the only thing they can think of (they never got past grade 2) which is go into even harder contractions. Now you have 5 sources of intense, unremitting total pain: a) Nerve root pain, it is the worst b) ischemic disc pain c) muscle spasm pain that makes you sweat d) mental anguish because no one knows how fix such a simple problem e)Social distress because you were born into such a “useless family”. You wish they would all go away but no, you need them, foolish though they are.
In this instance 1+1+1+1+1= 10 and you young sufferers know to what I am referring.
Oh dear I forgot that I was going to explain how this works. Simple. The reverse of the above. Sleeping with your head and feet being gently pulled by gravity in opposite directions elongates the spine. Which takes the pressure off the discs. Because the spine is a little longer, the inside volume of the disc increase so the pressure becomes a relative vacuum. Since there is now more pressure on the outside of the disc and less on the inside, the little bulge pops back into place. The nerve roots are no longer being irritate and stop screaming. The blood vessels open allowing healing fluids to fix everything. The muscles stop contracting like they were in a weight lifting contest. You relax the pain gradually recedes until it goes entirely. You stop moaning. Your relies leave you alone. Tomorrow you gingerly arise to face another day. Knowing you, I suspect you would like 2 days taking it easy, ordered by the doctor of course, with your wife waiting on you hand and foot.
Oh! but you say, “the problem is getting to sleep”. Ah! That’s where your great grandmother’s brandy drenched potion comes in handy.
My bill? $ 5 for the 4’ length of 4” plastic pipe. What’s that? You refuse to pay. But why? Of course. Making you laugh only added to the pain”
Yours truly Philip G. Ney MD FRCP(C) 30/11/2016