This morning I had a two-hour session at the New England Baptist Hospital's Spine Clinic. It has been two months since I first came to NEBH and started therapy. I was measured and tested in several ways again today including motion and flexibility. Because of my progress I got lots of 'attaboys'. Couch potatoing and babying one's back I have found from personal experience are not solutions for lower back pain mitigation. In an earlier post I noted these people have been written up in the Wall Street Journal, LA Times and the NY Times. "Therapeutic exercise has been shown to decrease pain and is primarily used to provide the patient with the experience to safely and effectively function despite back pain," according to the head physical therapist Lisa Childs. I, like many other sufferers from back pain are or had become kinesiophobic. We were afraid to move or be active lest we further deteriorate already painful vertebrae and discs. Thanks to the folks at NEBH my couch potato days are over.
I have been going to the local Excel in Bountiful. Their trainer thought these people in Boston were a little nuts and told me I could injure my back from the exercises they had given me here. Few trainers and only 10% of the back docs in the US are aware there are better ways for treatment of back pain than surgery and painkillers. This new therapeutic approach is to stretch yourself and do more in terms of yoga like stretching, weight training and exercise. The rewards will follow. Of course everyone needs to see their own doc and have an MRI or x-rays. In consulation with a qualified doctor and a program like NEBH miracles happen. It has been more than a month since since my last Celebrex.
Our hotel where we stayed is in Brookline, not far from the clinic. Brookline is the birthplace of JFK who also had a bad back from a WWII injury. The National Park Service maintains the home where he was raised. Back pain is both Democratic and something that can be diminished with effort and guidance. Other pains in the backside will not diminish for another year and half.
