Fitter Stoke:
C C C:
Consider that not everyone gets back pain. People who are in happy relationships, with happy families and doing a job they enjoy do not tend to get aches and pains. It just doesn't happen.
Right. Because those people never fall, get into car accidents, or accidentally lift something the wrong way. It just doesn't happen.
But I'm sure they all troll internet forums, because that's obviously what happy, well-adjusted people who aren't disgruntled weirdos do.
Thanks for clearing that up.
Actually that's true, happy well-adjusted people don't tend to hurt themselves in the way you described (falls, car accidents, lifting accidents).
Maybe it happens occasionally, but when it does, such a person will recover very quickly on his own or with minimal intervention. In any back pain clinic, what you will
not see is a cross section of the community. What you
will see is unhappy people of lower income and lower intelligence, and sometimes middle/high income/intelligence people with horrible relationships and self esteem. I'm not making a judgment here - such people have a very hard time in life and are deserving of every assistance they can get. But this is the fact. Walk into any emergency department or fracture clinic or back pain clinic and you will see a very narrow subsection of the community. Unhappy people. A weak counter-argument is to say "they are unhappy because they are in pain", but look really closely and you will see that these people have unhappiness etched deeply into their faces. They were unhappy well before they were beset by physical pain. Research supports the idea that those of low mood have a very hard time recovering from back pain. Just Google "chronic pain + mood + depression + anxiety" and there's more than enough for a few day's study.
I've had my share of aches and pains. Anyone who has suffered depression will say the same. Sometimes my whole body has ached so severely I couldn't sit still. But traditional models of treatment fall way short of what's required, especially in the treatment of chronic pain. All the most modern research into chronic pain points to the mind as the source and cause.
What 'Some Guy' says about all the options facing a person with pain is so right. How the hell would the average person know what to do when faced with all these possibilities? It's quite insane that this should be the case. My main problem with chiropractors is that many of them take advantage of a patient's uncertainty...and they feed it. Such lines are commonplace: "If you don't have weekly treatments for x years you will end up not being able to walk". "I need a down payment of x thousand dollars for your x years of treatment which starts today". The weak of mind fall prey to this. It's really very cruel to defraud and frighten those already in great pain.
Sarno and many others have cottoned onto the idea of acceptance. Acceptance of the deep fears and sadness that gets locked away in the subconscious. Anything that is denied, repressed, suppressed will eventually get shifted into the body. It's not a new idea; it's just not widely accepted. There's a whole host of different ways to include this acceptance into treatment.