As I've said before, our bodies would be a lot easier to care for if they came with owner's manuals.
Now, I've read that the two most common reasons for a visit to a doctor's office are colds and back pain.
I was happy to read that they called it back pain, rather than the more common back "discomfort", because it is pain, you see.
What an engineer would call "tolerances" are pretty tight in the back, because there are a lot of components to fit onto the spinal cord, while at the same time supporting it against the pull of gravity.
And when we get a little older, those tolerances are put to the test, because the dimensions of the discs change (they shrink), and the dimensions of the spinal components themselves may change as they sort of, you know, crumble slowly.
That brings us to an event that many of us get to experience: a misalignment of some part of the spine, giving rise to what laymen refer to as "pain" and doctors refer to as "discomfort", unless the doctor is experiencing the pain himself.
I know a really neat way to make my back pain last longer.
Here's how it works: I take to my bed, and lie on top of a heating pad.
I can make the pain continue unabated for about three weeks at a time! That was my record, anyway.
And it made sense to me at the time. Once I had made it into bed, I wasn't moving, so the pain mostly stopped temporarily, unless I did something stupid, like breathing or coughing or hiccuping. And the nice warm hot pad was nice and warm.
The heating pad also increased the tissue swelling, so the pain lasted much, much longer.
Now, to SHORTEN the period of agony, I use a somewhat different protocol.
I take to the floor, not the bed. The floor is mostly flat, and it provides great, if uncomfortable, support for my personal back.
Yeah, I cheat. I actually take to the carpet, which is a little less hard than the floor, but still pretty flat.
And I use ice on the lower two-thirds of my back, more or less continuously, until the inflammation has reduced itself enough that the spinal components go back home, and the pain ceases.
I don't like ice packs (really, gel packs that are cold as ice). It's uncomfortable when I slide 'em under me (make sure there's at least one layer of thin cloth between you and the ice whatever, so you don't burn the skin). But when I use them, the pain goes away faster.
I also fill up my stomach, to reduce the ulcer that will probably form anyway, and take four ibuprofen every four hours, to reduce the inflammation.
And I smear a buncha Aspercreme all over my lower back, to reduce inflammation, as well.
And I found a pretty cool addition to the treatment protocol recently: it's a digestive enzyme made from pineapple stems called bromelain, which is cheap, readily available, and reduces pathological swelling all over the body. At least it does for me.
Once the back is fully supported, so that trauma to the soft tissue stops, and the ice, ibuprofen, Aspercreme and bromelain can work their magic, the hard tissues slip back into the places God intended them to occupy, and the pain vanishes.
But I walk carefully for several days, because, no kidding, I don't like pain as much as you might think.
And I've canceled my annual bungee jumping appointment for tomorrow, as well.
Now, depending on how much I've abused my poor little back, it may go a full year or two between these little parties. But now, at least, I know what should have been on page 37 of my personal owner's manual.
And I can reduce the screaming from three weeks to two days or so. If I'm religious about all the elements of the protocol.
And there's nothing like pain to make me meticulous.
Recall that sciatica is a little different, and I've talked about that in prior posts.
UPDATE: I was a compliant patient of my own, so the back pain resolved itself over the course of about three days. Sure beats the three weeks when I tried the old approach. And I still say that life would be easier if you were issued an owner's manual for your own personal body when you were able to read.
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