Debilitating. There is no other way to describe it. You can't move - you can't sit - for that matter you can't even sleep. You've got no strength, no energy, its just like something took all of the wind out of your sails. Just dead in the water.

That's how it feels when you have Low Back Pain. You're helpless. You just can't do anything.

If you feel like this, you're not alone. 75% of our population will suffer from this malady at some point in their life. Many of those will have multiple wrestling matches with this formidable foe.

And when you look at treatment outcomes, the traditional approaches fail more often than they help. This makes people feel like they're between a rock and a hard place - with nowhere left to go and not knowing what to do.

To really begin to know how to deal with the pain, we have to first know why it is there - what is causing it.

We all sense pain through the process of inflammation. Inflammation is caused by irritated White Blood Cells (WBC) making a bunch of chemicals that start with Arachadonic Acid that call other WBC's to help supposedly kill off some foreign invader like bacteria. But a lot of the time there is no foreign invader - just irritation.

And the problem isn't simply that a bunch of WBC's decided to go hyper and have an Arachadonic Acid party. The fact of the matter is that they are irritated and they are only doing what they were designed to do.

The problem is the irritation - not the result of the irritation.

With Low Back Pain the irritation is caused by something not working right. Something else has to work harder because the first thing isn't doing its job. It's like a tug-of-rope, when people start letting go on one side the others have to work much harder.

When that something quits working - say a joint in your spine - it starts a reflex loop. The reflex loop has 4 parts to it: a muscle that moves the joint; the ligaments and such that hold the joint together; the joint itself; and the nerve that communicates with all of these other parts.

When the reflex loop starts, it shuts everything down - nothing works. Exercise won't work here because the reflex won't let the muscle work. Stretching does the same thing. These both can only work when the reflex is turned off. And pills really can't break the reflex either.

So if what you are doing isn't changing your situation, go have somebody who understands the reflex loop evaluate you - your freedom from pain depends on it.


Copyright (c) 2013 Dr Brad Montagne