Ask HN: How long does it take for chronic programmer back pain to get better? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How long does it take for chronic programmer back pain to get better?

6 pointsTipewryter22 comments

Anyone here who has been sitting in front of their computer for their whole life without doing sports? Did you get back pain and then at one point decided to tackle this issue?

If so, how long did it take to get better?

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A lot of back pain, regardless of where is is felt, stems from the large Bundling of nerves in the cervical spine and in the sciatic nerve bundles underneath your glute muscles.

Do not stretch your spine, as your structure is likely weak, and you can further damage your disks/vertebrae and the nerves therein by improperly applying changes to where the pain resides most frequently.

I suggest you look into foam rolling, and fasciae work in the glute/hamstring areas first. There are a lot of mobility youtubers that talk all about different techniques.

Also I have been studying the effects of LaJin (Traditional Chinese stretch series) and so far found the prolonged relaxation in the fascia to relieve chronic pain, and uncover structural improprieties that are the root cause.

Here is a long write-up over self healing with paida-lajin (拍打-拉筋 Basically slapping-stretching). http://www.dontow.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/P...

As for how long it takes to get better... growth and entropy are in opposition. It may relieve your pain day 1 but it may come back halfway through the next day, it may take 6 weeks to feel the deep relief. Your structural damage could be well beyond simple tissue degeneration and nerve pain, in which case self treatment is not advised. You should have an MRI taken if you believe yourself to be in later stage deterioration of the affected area.

    Do not stretch your spine

What do you mean with this? How does one stretch their spine?

I suppose that could be euphemistic. Excuse my previous terminology. You do not want to decompress your vertebrae, stretch the quadratus lumborum or the erector spinae to release tightness in the back. You are better off focusing on a bottom up approach with calves, hamstrings, glutes, and rarely directly stretch the areas around the spine.

He means going to a chiro that puts a strap to your head and starts pulling short and hard. Your spine should decompress slowly with exercises if you want to keep things safe.

When you have a sitting job, the chance of developing a stenose in your L1-L5 vertebrae when getting older is very large. You need to get off your chair at least once an hour walking around a bit, also you need to do low impact sports like walking the park or something like that. For acute back problems you need at least do mobilizing exercises for the lower back and if a vertebrae stays stuck you can opt for a chiropractor to force it to go lose. Most back problems that cause back pains are stuck vertebrae that make muscles working hard to compensate. So deal with your issues and don't wait or rest, that makes it much worse. My experience in acute situations is that mobilizing exercises can take 3-4 weeks to make the pains go completely, after a few days however they already get rid of the worst pains like nerve pains from stuck nerves between vertebrae. After that period I personally start mobilizing exercises immediately when I feel the slightest back pains and then it helps within a few days and keep the pain levels low, so keep exercising. Since doing these exercises, my need for painkillers for back pains went away.

I have to get off my chair after like 15 minutes anyhow, because work with the computer causes intense pain in my upper back.

Walking on the other hand causes pain in my lower back. Not as much though.

Regarding stuck vertebrae - how would one even know if one is stuck? Is there a way to test it?

Go to your doctor and ask for a physio consult at a therapist near you if you really need to know a specific place of your lower back pain. The exercises are common for the whole lower back, you can find some when googling with "mobility exercises lower back". Success solving your problems. BTW upper back problems can also be solved with the right exercises, upper back problems also often can cause intestine and other problems like stomach, kidney and liver. Nerves have 2 main functions, steering all parts of your body and feedback to the brain.

I assume you ask this question because you suffer from this condition. I had debilitating back pain. I (rather luckily) found an excellent physiotherapist. I followed his advice strictly and got out of that situation. He told me that the problem will never "go away" entirely in the sense that I have to work to keep it from recurring. If I don't stay active, then the pain will eventually return. What I found really helps to keep the problem (and many other musculoskeletal issues) away is doing squats and deadlifts. I learnt to do these from an excellent trainer who I found close to where I live. I am not talking about lifting immense weights like a powerlifter but just doing these with weights that were moderate gave me enough strength to not hurt myself with activities that demanded some strength. I also found that I am able to handle my motorcycle with much more ease as the whole body knows how to generate strength and coordinate itself better than before.

In short: When the problem was extreme - sought the help of an excellent physiotherapist. And once recovered - exercise to keep the problem at bay.

EDIT: Why I don't recommend doing exercises or stretches without consulting a good professional is that a good professional can tell you when you are "ready" for certain stretches, movements or exercises which would otherwise make the situation worse. Also of course s/he can evaluate your condition and tell you which ones are safe at which point of time. I didn't have many exercises for recovery. I had to do a handful but I didn't start with all of them and I had certain restrictions on movements in the beginning until I got a bit better and could do those safely.

EDIT2: Lifting weights also naturally improved my posture. I didn't even have to make conscious effort to maintain good posture when seated at the computer for instance. So, that is another way in which it prevents injury.

I haven't had it "get better". Most the things I do make it bearable, and help to keep it from being a debilitating, acute pain that puts me out for a few days.

I do have to echo Yaa101 though: mobility exercise and stretching help, and my chiropractor helps counter some of the persistent pains. Stretches that target my legs and especially my hips are critical to helping the lower back relax and not hurt.

Ironically, the least pain I felt was when I played volleyball with some friends for 3-4 hours every weekend for a month or two.

And you did not consider to keep on playing volleyball? Isn't getting rid of the "bearable" pain worth it?

Have you considered upping the volleyball to every other day or so?

I would happily invest full 3 or 4 days per week if I can get 100% pain free from it.

Well, since then I got married and moved several states away. I haven't found a group of people to play with, or a park with a volleyball net yet. Life kinda got in the way of that.

It is worth it to be pain free.

I was pretty close to being pain free, but upping it would be harder due to work schedule and geographic distance. I had to travel 30-60 minutes just to be able to play, so it was easier on the weekends rather than the work days.

You don't consider putting your body above work and marriage?

From personal experience I would recommend two things:

- a solid core routine. Here's a good example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4988649

- if it persists, reading the book "Healing back Pain" by John Sarno (Countless people seem to have begun the book highly skeptical and finished it pain free)

Depends. How can you get your boss off your back? :-)

I don't have a boss.

Get an all-33 chair seriously. Every other chair is non-sense. My previous office had 50~ different types of chairs and none of them worked from $100-$15,000. If you don't have the money there are these pieces that come for chairs, and it creates a cup for you to sit on which makes you sit straight.

For me, it got better when I stopped eating foods with sugar and refined carbs and reversed insulin resistance. No more pain anywhere at all, ever.

I'm not sure if I even eat any food with sugar and refined carbs. Is that stuff in bread?

Yes. Bread is very carbohydrate heavy and breaks down into simple sugars.

Wow. What do you eat instead of bread?

"instead of" is an odd question to me. My family doesn't eat bread unless we are at a restaurant. We don't think of it as something that needs replaced, because it just is something we are not in the habit of eating.

So when you ask what do we eat instead, the answer is "Everything else."

What do you eat in the morning?

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