My 18 Years of Chronic Backpain and How It Ended
It started when I was 28-years-old after mowing the lawn on a Saturday. I felt a little stiff. The next morning, for the first of many, many times to follow, I tried to get out of bed and collapsed back in pain. It was the worst pain I had ever felt.
That was the beginning of 18 years of frustration. I would have good periods and bad periods, but back pain was a constant part of my life and my psyche. There were long stretches where I dreaded (or sometimes couldn’t) put my socks on in the morning. Sometimes, I could lift and move things – sometimes I couldn’t. I could even play golf sometimes and get away with it. But the times that I tried and couldn’t get away with it left me in misery for weeks. Through it all, I never stopped to consider that none of it made any sense.
I came to believe that my back was tricky. Sometimes the discs would swell up and sometimes not. That was how I explained it to myself. There was no rhyme or reason to when or why – they just acted up sometimes. I considered surgery but told people that I felt I could hold out until the techniques improved enough that the results were more reliable. I was resigned to life of pain and limitations.
When I started meeting with Alan Gordon, I was very skeptical. I had tried everything – massage, stretching, acupuncture, dry needling, physical therapy, chiropractic, and some weird stuff too. I came into my first session with him thinking that this was just another thing I would try for a while and then give up on. That changed as he began to quiz me on when and why my back would “act up.”
He asked me if I felt I had an injury that was causing all the problems. I couldn’t think of exactly how I injured my back, but I told him that it was obviously injured. He asked me if I’d every sprained my ankle. I said yes. He asked if it hurt to walk on that sprained ankle every time or just on and off. I replied that it hurt every time, and then it started to click. Through I our initial sessions, I began to realize that my back pain made no real sense. How could I golf sometimes, but not every time? Why could I help a friend move, lifting and bending all day without negative consequences, but then not be able to put my socks on a few days later for no reason? It became obvious that it didn’t add up. I began to let go of the idea that I had a mysterious injury that would come and go whenever it felt like it.
I learned to acknowledge the pain I was feeling without fearing it. I learned to examine it in detail and breath relaxed breaths that signaled to my brain that everything was ok. I learned to believe that there was no injury and therefore no harm was being done by moving around, bending, twisting, and lifting. Fear of damage started to go away, and then my recovery took off.
I was stunned at the way I improved once I embraced the truth that I had no injury – no damage was being done. Fear of my crazy back dissipated more and more until I actually began to look forward to it acting up so I could practice examining the pain without fear and breathing in a relaxed way as I studied my own pain. Those opportunities became fewer and fewer until they stopped altogether.
I’ve lived totally pain and fear free for three years now. I see no reason that my life won’t continue that way. Learning to understand the sources of my pain changed my life. I am forever grateful!
It started when I was 28-years-old after mowing the lawn on a Saturday. I felt a little stiff. The next morning, for the first of many, many times to follow, I tried to get out of bed and collapsed back in pain. It was the worst pain I had ever felt.
That was the beginning of 18 years of frustration. I would have good periods and bad periods, but back pain was a constant part of my life and my psyche. There were long stretches where I dreaded (or sometimes couldn’t) put my socks on in the morning. Sometimes, I could lift and move things – sometimes I couldn’t. I could even play golf sometimes and get away with it. But the times that I tried and couldn’t get away with it left me in misery for weeks. Through it all, I never stopped to consider that none of it made any sense.
I came to believe that my back was tricky. Sometimes the discs would swell up and sometimes not. That was how I explained it to myself. There was no rhyme or reason to when or why – they just acted up sometimes. I considered surgery but told people that I felt I could hold out until the techniques improved enough that the results were more reliable. I was resigned to life of pain and limitations.
When I started meeting with Alan Gordon, I was very skeptical. I had tried everything – massage, stretching, acupuncture, dry needling, physical therapy, chiropractic, and some weird stuff too. I came into my first session with him thinking that this was just another thing I would try for a while and then give up on. That changed as he began to quiz me on when and why my back would “act up.”
He asked me if I felt I had an injury that was causing all the problems. I couldn’t think of exactly how I injured my back, but I told him that it was obviously injured. He asked me if I’d every sprained my ankle. I said yes. He asked if it hurt to walk on that sprained ankle every time or just on and off. I replied that it hurt every time, and then it started to click. Through I our initial sessions, I began to realize that my back pain made no real sense. How could I golf sometimes, but not every time? Why could I help a friend move, lifting and bending all day without negative consequences, but then not be able to put my socks on a few days later for no reason? It became obvious that it didn’t add up. I began to let go of the idea that I had a mysterious injury that would come and go whenever it felt like it.
I learned to acknowledge the pain I was feeling without fearing it. I learned to examine it in detail and breath relaxed breaths that signaled to my brain that everything was ok. I learned to believe that there was no injury and therefore no harm was being done by moving around, bending, twisting, and lifting. Fear of damage started to go away, and then my recovery took off.
I was stunned at the way I improved once I embraced the truth that I had no injury – no damage was being done. Fear of my crazy back dissipated more and more until I actually began to look forward to it acting up so I could practice examining the pain without fear and breathing in a relaxed way as I studied my own pain. Those opportunities became fewer and fewer until they stopped altogether.
I’ve lived totally pain and fear free for three years now. I see no reason that my life won’t continue that way. Learning to understand the sources of my pain changed my life. I am forever grateful!