An Odyssey of a back pain sufferer
How I made a truce with my lower back pain making it easily manageable by “rewiring” the brain through vigorous physical movements
“Your MRI indicates that your L5-S1 disk has prolapsed and quite significantly too. The disk has dried up and devoid of necessary nutrients and there are chances of the disk rupturing further and can be catastrophic if no action is taken” so said the good doctor, a neuro-surgeon, well reputed too. Having given his verdict he looked at my bewildered face. Perhaps he would have seen a big question mark superimposed on my visage. The scary recondite medical jargons, the premonition that the MRI elicited, the nauseating smell of the hospital, the restlessly scurrying nurses and the impatient patients all had left me perplexed.
Seeing me startled, he continued, “don’t worry, we can fix it up”. He suggested performing a Laminectomy. “you can play even football after you are healed”. Naturally, for an outdoor guy like me, those words were reassuring. I straightaway agreed. Biggest mistake of my life. Ever heard of a back surgery curing back pain?
That was way back in early 2000. Laconically I would like to say that after a long tussle with the nagging PITA, I gradually recovered until the pain was manageable but with infrequent bouts of flare-ups here and there. Was it surgery that cured it or was it the post-surgery physio or the time I cannot tell. I took up fitness very seriously (thanks to my brother who runs a training facility) and became an ardent fitness freak. I was also an outdoor guy and wildlife photography, little outdoor adventures here and there were my serious hobbies. Well, on that doomsday of April 2009, I was performing a heavy deadlift racking up to 135 Kgs, and all hell broke loose. There, I had inflicted another blow on my spine in the same damned lumbar region (L5-S1) where I had been cut under the scrutiny of the doctor’s scalpel. Thus ended my weight training days!!
There I had hit one of my life’s lowest points, loathing in self-pity and cursing the stars. All my physical activities came to an abrupt halt. Compounding the issue, the malignant depression set in. Well, “set in” is perhaps an understatement, for the depression engulfed me. Often the depression was too much to bear, magnitudes more than the actual physical discomfort. I laid my hands on whatever philosophical books that I could have access to, read motivational stories and did whatever I could to get me out of the self-created hell.
To make a long story short, suffice it to say that my body and mind convalesced and reconciled. It did take an inordinately long time and was like a second birth to me. But I knew my gymming days were far from over. I could never be the same old fit person again.
I was smitten by the fitness bug, and I hankered to hit the Gym again. Alas, my back was not in a condition to lift weights.
I had to concoct a few ways to get me back on track. So I started with bodyweight calisthenics and some light walking. Pushups and Pull-ups with some bodyweight squats became my staple regimen. As I regained confidence, I added in few more exercise movements to my routine like lunges, tiger pushups etc.
This went on for a few months but I never got the real “kick” out of doing these slow routines. I wanted to badly spruce up my workouts.
Now, I had to exercise caution so that I do not injure myself but also needed to increase the intensity. I had to take a calculated risk here. My back was so subtle that any new movements would send a trigger of back pain and stiffness forcing me to recant whatever training I was doing.
I had to frequently back off from the training, take a step back and start the iteration again with walking, and gradually build up until I could muster up the exercise moves that I was doing earlier.
You see, this was a cycle!
But one thing slowly soaked into me and I started to decipher a pattern here. The clamoring of the back used to subside each time allowing me to get back on track within a few days or weeks. I applied some common sense and it dawned to me that the flare-ups of back pain may not be indicating that my back suffered one more injury but maybe it was an alarm, a false one at that suggesting that the back was in grave danger whenever I did new movements.
So I researched this topic and found a plethora of data to support my theory.
I came across this excellent article:
Excerpt from this link:
One of the most controversial aspects of Sarno’s theory is that spine and disc abnormalities have no bearing on pain. In this 20/20 segment, Sarno dismisses these issues as “normal abnormalities” that are unrelated to any pain you may be experiencing. Many with back pain have no detectable abnormalities or structural problems while some that do have them suffer no pain.
According to Sarno, you unconsciously cause your own pain. In a nutshell, the pain you’re experiencing is your brain’s response to unaddressed stress, anger or fear. When these kinds of emotions are suppressed, your brain redirects the emotional impulses to restrict blood flow to certain parts of your body, such as your back, neck or shoulder, thereby triggering pain.
This pain acts as a distraction from the anger, fear or rage you don’t want to feel or think about. The pain essentially acts as a lid, keeping unwanted emotions from erupting. You may feel anger at the pain, but you won’t have to face the fact that you’re actually angry at your spouse, your children or your best friend, or that you hate your job, or the fact that you feel taken advantage of.
As noted by Sarno, working hard and constantly trying to do everything perfectly to keep everybody around you happy, “is enraging to the unconscious mind.” The term Sarno coined for this psychosomatic pain condition is “tension myoneural syndrome,”7 and he firmly believed most people can overcome their pain by acknowledging its psychological roots.
Even if you struggle to accept such a concept, the mere knowledge of it can have therapeutic power. In other words, by considering the idea that your problem is in fact rooted in stress factors opposed to a physical problem can allow the pain to dissipate.
While many of Sarno’s patients got well without psychiatric help, he would often recommend seeking out a psychotherapist to explore repressed emotions, or to take up journaling to put your feelings on paper. Dr. David Hanscom, an orthopedic surgeon, also uses expressive writing as a primary treatment tool for back pain. To learn more about this, please see our 2015 interview linked above. Other dos and don’ts listed in Sarno’s book, “Healing Back Pain,” include:
For me, this made sense, although later on, I added some physical therapy treatment. The gist was that physical movements were not hurting my back!
It was the “twisted” neural pathway that the brain had formed to protect the back that was the culprit whenever the back was subjected to new movement or intensity. First and foremost thing was to stop getting frightened whenever back did not co-operate. It was easy since I knew that the back always bounced back after each bout. So I started to overlook any pain and discomfort knowing that it was ephemeral. Next was to send positive signals to the brain repeatedly to assure that nothing was wrong and to let brain “rewire” the neural response. The way I did it was to increase the intensity even when my back pain flared up. This way I kept reassuring to my brain that exercising will not hurt the back and allow the brain to rewire the neural pathways. I approached this methodically, by sprucing the intensity little by little, gaining more confidence along the way. This way, I built a solid foundation.
Now that I was convinced that vigorous physical activity (barring lifting weights) does not cause back pain, I started incorporating training modalities like HIIT, Tabata intervals to spruce up the intensity. I did it in a gradual manner until I could build up the max intensity possible. I used a variety of exercises like the stationary bicycle, punching bag, squats and even running.
There I was, all revved up, hitting my max HR (I usually train with an HR monitor) most times and believe me, the back never complained as before.
Of course, I felt small discomforts seldom but that was quite easily manageable.
From past few months, I have started incorporating a new regimen known as “animal flow”. For those interested, skim through this website to get the flavor.
This is a new kid on the block but it really lives up to its reputation. Apart from being a conditioning exercise (cardio and muscular), it has a therapeutic effect on my back. It makes me do movements that I would have never dreamt of and strengthens the core. My confidence has doubled!! These moves have helped my back tremendously. Many back pain sufferers in the Gym also have benefitted from doing these flows three days per week. Of course, I avoid certain movements but by far most movements have proven beneficial.
Well, this has been my journey so far and how I made peace with my back pain. The back pain has become very easily manageable for now. This has worked for me and my back pain comrades who frequent the Gym. However, please exercise caution before you try my methods. It is always better to consult your physio or ortho before you start this. Always start very slowly and take your time to build solid confidence and foundation.
