On Wed, 13 Aug 2008 01:22:00 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm,
"Flash" quickly quoth:


wrote in message
...
Bloody Hell - my back has gone out again, its recurrent - usual thing,

Condolences, Andrew. Back pain is hell and doctor's don't know ****
about pain relief. "Take a pill", "You can't do that any more", and
"We'll have to operate. Chances are 50/50. Half get better, half get
worse, but noone stays the same after the operation." don't cut it for
me at all.

I let nature and time heal me after 3 docs wanted to try 3 different
ops, none with a better than 50% chance of success, one wanting to do
a foraminal laminectomy on the wrong side of T-4. I warned the
insurance company about that *******. He also billed the ins co $936
for the 15 minute consultation/complete physical he gave me. Scary
thing it that he also wrote a sixty something page report to them
about me from the info he gleaned in 15 minutes! That fleecer should
have been in politics. Anyway, I'm back to 85% after 20ish years.
Sure, I miss that 15%, but I miss my youthful energy levels more. g


Andy, I can sympathize, I had a big fracture of T-5 when a drunken woman
knocked me off my brand new Honda 250 Dream in Las Vegas, in 1963. Six
months in a body cast, and years learning what to NOT do. (For years,
sneezing was HELL!)

T-3/4/5 is my fun area, but I was never in the hospital in a cast.
Eek!


For the last 25 years, chiropractors (you must find a good one who
understands what ails) have been helpful. But preventing overstress is
better medicine.

I have a window of motion I have to be in to stay pain-free. After 23
years, I still can't do it more than a few times a week. Too much work
hurts, but too much lying around also hurts.


I have found that lying face-down, over two sofa-pillows placed on the
queen-sized, with arms and legs hanging over opposite sides helps to stretch
and relax things marvelously. I even take a nap for 45 min, that way.

Interesting.


Also, gettin up in the AM, lying flat on my back, holding to the edge of
the matress with my left hand sort of down by my side, raising the left leg
and swinging it stiff-kneed, as far over the opposite side as possible, with
some autority, repeated four or five times, (twisting the lower back) then
doing it the opposite leg does straighten me out well, too.

Yeah, I wake up and do 20 leg tosses to each side, then do ten
crunches and ten cross-crunches on each side, all before I get out of
bed. It hurts less when I'm not as awake.


Inversion table is OK, just make sure you are balanced right, and don't
get a jerk, or don't over stress it. It is as good as RB said as hanging
upside-down in the tree. Often it is easy for me to grab the door-trim
overhead, and sort of hang here by my hands, too. Stretch is the thing.

Most PTs don't know how to work an upper-back. All their experience is
with the lumbar area, not the thoracic spine. Traction was the thing
which worked for me at the outset, but once the pain had gone down, it
didn't work any longer. And his range-of-motion exercises hurt like
hell. I didn't like Marquis.


But the chiropractor - ah, the one I have now is a tough young guy, and
does a manipulation where I lay on my right side, he pulls my right arm to
sort of bring my sholder out from underneath, (kind of like prestressing,
getting in a pre-twist) and then places both of my hands on the fornt part
of the left shoulder, then he pulls my right leg up with the knee bent,
hooks my left toe in the bend of the right knee, puts his left hand on top
my hands, and his right hand on my left hip, and his right knee on my left
knee, and then snaps left hip forward with left shoulder back. Turn over,
repeat for other side. No, it is not nearly as gruesome or painful as it
sounds, and *for me*, it works.

Hmm, nevahoiduvit, and I've been to chiros since I was 7. (Mild
scoliosis. Mom's is S-shaped, mine's the exact reverse.)


I HAVE found that being in condition, with regular exercise helps. Being
70 is not easy, but, as my brother says, "I'm going to live to be a hundred,
or die trying."

Yes. Lactic acid builds up in my muscles and I hurt worse if I just
lie around for too long. Movement helps immensely. Lots of water helps
a lot, too.


Good luck, there are as many potential solutions as there are bad backs, I
reckon.

Yuppers! Yes, good luck to all the bad backs out there. I consider
myeslf lucky that mine was considerably milder than most.

--
Pain makes man think. Thought makes man wise. Wisdom makes life endurable.
-- John Patrick