Comment by bentt | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bentt | Hacker News Reader

I had some terrible back issues a few years ago. An MRI even showed I had a bulge in one of my discs. I did walk every day, and it helped a bit. I also tried a zillion other things to get over it.

Now, I know people have all kinds of opinions on this stuff, but what helped me is not super well known, probably because it doesn't make anyone any money, really.

What got me over it finally was reading and buying into Dr. John Sarno's books. Sarno was this mild mannered doctor in New York who stuck to a philosophy for many years and wrote a series of books. The basic idea of his work is that when our brain wants to distract us from something emotionally painful, it has a number of tricks, including the generation of real physical pain. Not imagined pain... but real pain. I don't want to oversimplify how you get over the pain, but it's a mental/emotional approach.

There was a quote in one of his books that I found really compelling. It said that a study did MRIs of a collection of adults and found that there was little correlation between back pain and condition of the actual spine. Many people had bulges in their discs and felt no pain. Some had nothing wrong physically, but were in terrible pain.

My takeaway from the above walking study is that walking is psychologically beneficial. It's distracting. It's physically active. It's routine. It's many things that help our minds as well as our bodies.

Ultimately to get better, you need to really figure out if you're physically hurt or not. A bulging disc may not qualify as truly hurt. If you work with a doctor to rule out a physical injury (which do tend to heal on their own given enough time), then you might consider a mindbody approach.

This video from years ago is pretty good, and the comments are quite something: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qwFjKYlbf4

One should not forget that cartilage has no arteria/vene system to provide nutrients to the cells and to rid them of the metabolic garbage. This is only done by passive diffusion, driven by compression/decompression of the e.g. discs. And cartilage has no nerves. So the body has to make up pain if it thinks something is wrong, based on some at least to me atm not known parameters in the tissue around the cartilage.

The best medicine for backpain is physical activity, especially with respect to the mentioned compression/decompression. The human body is made for walking, so that is one good treatment. But in some cases it may not be enough, and more special physical exercises may be needed. If you understand German, the YT vids of Liebscher-Bracht helped me a lot. But general flexibility training should in most cases be enough.

With mental exercises, one may get rid of the pain, and that might be enough in cases where it is a mere misinterpretation ,or wrong fixation of the interpretation, of the cartilage status. But e.g. a disc bulge is definitely a pathological condition. One that in many many cases can be healed with rather simple physical exercises.

A good muscle 'armor' around the joints can prevent the pathology and often attenuate the severeness of done damage.

So please exercise. Being dependent on medics and health systems adds to the decapacitation which is todate en vogue. Sapere aude!

Sarno had ideas about the brain’s ability to restrict blood flow from areas of the body. His thinking was that it was specifically to cause pain, with the end result being a relief from emotional distress (due to distraction of the conscious mind).

Maybe there is some commonality between what you’re saying and what he was on to.

Steering the blood flow has more usages. E.g. if you eat, the blood flow in the (peripheral) muscles is attenuated and in the stomac intensified. And it is possible to restrict the blood flow to wounded areas, which is beneficial in a fight. But I was not able to do this every time I got a wound. Maybe too few practice.

I read this book at a friend’s recommendation in 2014 after nearly a decade of frequent episodes of debilitating back pain (also diagnosed as a her herniated disc).

Gave it an honest try because I figured I couldn’t lose- Either at home or I could make fun of my buddy for recommending nonsense.

Genuinely life changing for me.

Ever since, on the rare occasions when it does flare up again I reflect on the ideas from the book and apply them. Works amazingly well.

Yep, I also have recurrences. They coincide perfectly with stress. Now instead of thinking I am physically falling apart, I focus on the idea that I am emotionally falling apart. :) Works so much better!

I can highly recommend also. Because there’s such a switch into the psychological side of back pain it’s easy to assume it’s a bit loose, but suspend your doubt and easing off the catastrophisation of each back episode is an incredible re-training of the framing that makes an enormous difference.

If you suffer from back pain definitely worth a read.

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