ALSO: Research the anti-inflammatory nabumetone. I don't know why doctors don't bring it up. (not additive, no high)

For the record, this is what a good physical therapist would have prescribed.

The issues that come from running are related to where you start from lacking knowledge and lacking physical health. Knowledge guides interpretation of pain(what different types of pain mean, when to stop when to push through). Understanding pain is a communication skill that very few people will teach you, but in my opinion is more valuable then literacy. Knowledge also enables positive feedback loops concerning form and efficiency of movement.

Physical health is the structal integrity of the core and stabilizer muscles. Each of these items are on a sliding scale, and somewhere in that scale is a tipping point where if you pass under it you are hurting yourself instead of healing yourself. I hypothesize that 80% of our population falls on the injury side, but that this could be solved with education and PT.

I'm glad you didn't give up, or had the nerve to push past anyone saying "that's just the way you are, you can't fix that" because I feel that statement couldn't be further from the truth.

Do some strength training and some playful sport instead, like basketball or BJJ. It's fun, you'll look good, you'll move well, and you'll get confident with people, all in 2-4 hours per week.

You also need to do some kind of strength training. A push, a pull, a spinal compression and a spinal tension. Eg pushups, rows, squats, pullups.

Otherwise your core will be weak and you will be missing key stabilizing muscles that prevent injury when you are in an unusual position, like picking up a suitcase or changing a tire. Which is exactly what causes back pain.

I hypothesize that a majority of depression suffering is sourced by subtle spinal/nerve injuries, which the brain could interpret as death. Once a strong enough signal develops in the brain that's saying, "you're in pain, all the time, you probably should isolate yourself and kill yourself" it's not hard to see how that could lead to depression and suicidal thoughts.

If you don't mind, could please tell me how do you lie down and work ?

Since I started suffering from back pain , I was thinking if something like this was possible. I was also afraid it would fuck up my eyes, have you had any problems of that sort ?

I have three "workstations" at my office - two of them take place at my adjustable height desk. I can stand or sit.

I also have a full sized couch that I can lie flat on. I prop my laptop up on a pillow just like you might at home.

I move between these three positions as it suits me and can avoid completely any kind of fatigue or unhealthy postures.

Also I'm looking for ways to put together a workstation in the horizontal position

I tend to avoid recommending specific exercises - instead I like to recommend that you think of your trunk in three dimensions and apply weight bearing loads to at least every 90 degrees around that circle (which implies at least four exercises).

So that would mean your flexing your back, your abs, and each of your two sides (Abdominal external oblique, I think).

I personally try to hit every 45 degrees (which implies at least 8 exercises).

You need to try a lot of different exercises and find the ones that work for you and for your body type.

And you need to walk.

You can do 50 different trunk/core exercises and you will never hit every single muscle and combination of muscles the way that walking does.

Your body is a walking machine. You were built to walk. Walking will heal you. It will be painful and difficult at first - when I blew out my L4/L5 I needed to lie down for an hour after walking 4-5 miles. That doesn't last. Your body will tighten and strengthen up all the right muscles to hold your back in the most natural and healthful position it can be in - the one that supports walking.

And frankly, even if the system doesn't work for everyone, the way you have deconstructed it into 45 degree angles is something I have never come across before, so kudos to you for figuring this out.

I have the same question as the sibling. Where did you read about this stuff?

But to get started, deep breathing I feel has had an affect on my overall core strength.

At times, you'll feel like a moron. Deep, deep breathes. I'd suggest starting off for session of like 5 or 10 minutes. It doesn't matter how you do it. Just breathe deep as a practice. But if you need something to get started: something that's standard is X second in, X second hold, X second release. You probably won't be able to do 8 seconds. So start with 4 seconds, and move up.

Then there's deadlifts, squats, bench. Core functional movements. You should feel your core expanded, and activated. You should be recruiting these muscles when doing these movements.

But yoga. for real dog.

Tldr; yoga is great , but not for all.

This is important. Yoga is very powerful and I think everyone should incorporate yoga movements into their fitness regime.

However, typical yoga classes and even established yoga movement series (like the Ashtonga primary series) are heavily weighted towards forward folding/bending which is the last thing you want to do with a weak/injured back.

This doesn't mean you shouldn't do yoga - it means that you should understand the physiology of a bulging/blow disc and build up your strength (perhaps with other yoga exercises/poses) to the point that you are strong enough to do that forward folding ... and even then maintain caution and moderation.

With a fully rehabbed/asymptomatic L4/L5 I am doing heavy freeweight squats and deadlifts and even inverting during BJJ - but I would still be cautious and even modify portions of a typical yoga class ...

The problem is , most yoga practitioners (atleast the ones I consulted in india) consider it like some sort of magical cure for everything. I was asked to do surya namaskar , despite them knowing I had back pain . I went to one of the most reputed centres here, and all I got from them were pseudo science mumbo jumbo.

I have got much more valuable info from this HN thread. Thank you for sharing for you experience. Your story has given me hope , I feel motivated to learn more about backpain and find a solution tailored for me.

I also feel this sort of information (personal stories of knowledgeable people) should be more easily accessible for people.A non profit , trust worthy website like Wikipedia, or even a github wiki.

Do you remember the exact conditions when you fell down (movement, which part of the day, what did you do before, etc). Have you been practicing yoga alone or with a teacher, group?

Did you went in and try figuring out what caused your pain? Are you on track with it now? If yes, what has changed? Will you go back to your Yoga practice or you feel that it is dangerous for you?

Thanks!

I felt ready to start exercising and zeroed in on yoga. I started practicing with a group of people , led by an instructor. It was very intensive (hatha yoga) and most exercises involved stretching your arms and touching your feet.Other exercises like the bow pose, crow pose and head stand was also there. Sometimes, while I was sitting and touching my foot, the instructor would use his body weight to push my spine down from behind so that my stomach touched my knees. This may be the reason , but am not sure. So, after 3 months of this , I felt better and fitter than ever before and joined another yoga studio near to my home. Here, the poses were not as tough as the other place, but was done considerably faster. 1 month after joining there, I am bending down to touch my knees , and lightning strikes.I couldn't walk and was bedridden for a week. The time must have been around 7 pm. I went after work and did some warm ups as usual.

Coming to the reasons, I can think two things : the instructor exerting his force on my spine and the faster pace of the exercising. This is onle conjecture though.

Right now ,after some months of physical therapy and no other exercise, I have no pain while sitting.

I certainly plan to go back to my yoga practice. However , before I do I need to get some expert advice and some tests done.

I hope this answered all your questions!

Edit:just to be clear, the two reasons I stated are in addition to the main point I made, that some yoga poses are not safe for everyone.

The comments about the dangers of doing yoga are valid, but every sport or exercise can be dangerous depending on your condition, even swimming which is usually recommended as a safe sport. General tips are: ask your doctor for movements that you should avoid, tell your yoga teacher about your condition, if it hurts don't do it. More importantly I think, is for you to understand your condition. Read about it, feel your body and how it reacts to each exercise.

For example, even though I should avoid back bends they still help me build strength and improve my posture when done carefully. I am always aware of that during my yoga practice so I either skip the back bends or I do them softly, depending on how I feel.

Anyway, I recommend that people ask their doctor for advice or at least Google up a bit about the pros/cons of this and try to find articles from reputable sources. I did that some time ago and wasn't very impressed with the results.

Do you work remotely? I assume laying isn't an option in an office. Even standing, it may be frowned upon in more conservative work places.

I'll never forget having a migraine come back on as I was leaving the ER one night. They had already dosed me up well. All the drugs did though was make me not care that it felt like an ice pick was boring into my head. Still felt the pain.

I've lost way too many things to this pain over the years. It's awful.

They have almost disappeared since I switched to sleeping in a really hard Japanese futon and I switched to an active chair at work (search for Peter Opsvik).

It turns out my migraines seem to originate from extreme muscular tension in my left neck-arm joint.

My latest abortive measure was to apply infrared heat to my trapezius muscle (all the way up to my forehead), tens to the base of the trapezius and back of my neck, and go into the "crocodile" yoga pose for an hour. (I used a very light pillow to make it more comfortable). It took doing all of that over the course of 60-90 minutes and the migraine subsided.

1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/11279973/

If I'm in too much pain to physically get out of bed, how am I supposed to exercise?

I would email you, but you have no contact info. I imagine I will regret posting this. I usually do. Some broken part of my brain has yet to master hearing of someone else's suffering and going "Welp, not my problem!" It is still on my To Do list.

Some general thoughts, that may or may not be useful to you:

One of the benefits of exercise is that it moves lymph. This is how the body cleans your tissues. It is a necessary function for doing repair work. Think of how old buildings get rehabbed: The first step is to rent a giant dumpster and start doing demolition work and hauling out the trash.

Any muscle action at all will help move lymph. If you just can't do anything, warm salt water baths and massage can help your body take out the trash.

The other thing is you probably are dehydrated and suffering various nutrient shortfalls. The body needs resources to rebuild. After major surgery, you need major resources. Doctors never seem to prescribe higher nutrition during recovery. Additionally, medications routinely interfere with the absorption of certain nutrients or cause wasting of those nutrients. You should google this for every medication you take and up your intake of nutrients your drugs are known to deplete.

Spine surgery involves both bones and nerves. Nerves need extra B vitamins and specific fats to help heal. Bones need extra calcium, magnesium, vitamin D, vitamin K and B vitamins to help heal. Bone marrow needs healthy fats.

Some best practices:

Keep a food journal. Read up on symptoms of specific nutrient deficiencies. Taking supplements is easier at first than making dietary changes because you can do a better job of isolating specific variables because you can just add X nutrient instead of swapping one food for another. Do one new thing every week or two so you can watch how it plays out.

Sugar, mint and non drug antiinflammatories (like cinnamon and hot peppers) can help make pain more bearable.

Source: 16+ years of firsthand experience. (I used to be bedridden, and I spent 3.5 years in please-kill-me-now pain. I got myself better after doctors basically wrote me off.)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lymphatic_system

It is surprisingly hard to find a figure for the amount of increase or a study. I say that because I know I have seen this info before and without digging for it. I have no idea why I recall it as easy to find in the past when it seems so hard to find now. But I did find this study:

Exercise increased the clearance rate three- to sixfold

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-7793.1997....

Potentially also of interest:

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-26530269

http://gizmodo.com/why-standing-in-one-place-makes-your-legs...

It is trivially easy to search for "exercise moves lymph" and get a bunch of stuff, but probably not the kind of stuff people on HN want to see.

http://spartascience.com/blog-post/strength/deadlifts-can-cu...

Note: if you haven't, even though I strongly and emphatically recommend it, its almost certainly best to start with a coach who can teach proper movement mechanics.

It doesn't work for all people.

I get the impression that katastic has made genuine effort to engage in a wide range of treatment, and is still not getting much if any pain relief.

People find it weird that we still don't have good treatment options for some types of pain, but that's the reality. Some people just have to live their lives in near constant pain.

Here's the Faculty of Pain Management with some information about pain: https://www.rcoa.ac.uk/faculty-of-pain-medicine/opioids-awar...

And about the challenges of treating long term pain: https://www.rcoa.ac.uk/faculty-of-pain-medicine/opioids-awar...

More on topic, I'm an anecdote of someone who squats and deadlifts to prevent pain in my back and hips. Stopping for a couple weeks usually allows the pain to return.

> Recent studies have indicated that the deadlift exercise may be effective in decreasing pain intensity and increasing activity for most, but not all, patients with a dominating pattern of mechanical low back pain. This study aimed to evaluate which individual factors measured at baseline could predict activity, disability, and pain intensity in patients with mechanical low back pain after an 8-week training period involving the deadlift as a rehabilitative exercise. Thirty-five participants performed deadlift training under the supervision of a physical therapist with powerlifting experience. Measures of pain-related fear of movement, hip and trunk muscle endurance, and lumbopelvic movement control were collected at baseline. Measures of activity, disability, and pain intensity were collected at baseline and at follow-up. Linear regression analyses were used to create models to predict activity, disability, and pain intensity at follow-up. Results showed that participants with less disability, less pain intensity, and higher performance on the Biering-Sørensen test, which tests the endurance of hip and back extensor muscles, at baseline benefit from deadlift training. The Biering-Sørensen test was the most robust predictor because it was included in all predictive models. Pain intensity was the next best predictor as it was included in 2 predictive models. Thus, for strength and conditioning professionals who use the deadlift as a rehabilitative exercise for individuals with mechanical low back pain, it is important to ensure that clients have sufficient back extensor strength and endurance and a sufficiently low pain intensity level to benefit from training involving the deadlift exercise.

Well I'm sure that even the addicts don't "want" to be on pills. The real question is how many people actually are unnecessarily addicted. Do you believe that most are not? If so how would you substantiate that? If you want I can start listing out anecdotal information that would support the opposite of what you are saying, but that would get us nowhere right?

I'm not going to bore you with my story except to say, looking back, I'm amazed I was able to endure such pain for so long. I cry sometimes when I remember it.

I too had to fight to get the treatment I needed to "survive". Surviving was still miserable and I was always at the mercy of my pills and my health care providers. Thank god I make good money and managed to remain employed. I don't know how the average person could have afforded to pay for everything modern medicine has to offer like I did. Scans, injections, surgery, pills, PT...

May I suggest that an expert (I mean a top doc) in traditional Chinese medicine can take you from surviving to truly living. There are some things Western medicine truly excels at and for that I am grateful. However it does have blind spots. Some of those blind spots are perfect for eastern medicine. I thought it was vodoo bullshit but I found a few providers that legitimately changed my life. Plenty eastern medicine docs were total quacks. You get that in the west because it's fairly unregulated. I was lucky to stumble upon some of the best, people who even publish.

>“Even though I believe we should promote Chinese medicine,” Mao told him, “I personally do not believe in it. I don’t take Chinese medicine.”

> In 1923, Lu Xun, China’s most famous man of letters, reflected critically on his father’s visits to a Chinese doctor, visits that bankrupted the family and failed to produce results. “I still remember the doctor’s discussion and prescription,” Lu wrote, “and if I compare them with my knowledge now, I slowly realize that Chinese doctors are no more than a type of swindler, either intentional or unintentional, and I sympathize with deceived sick people and their families.”

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_exa...

>...Mao’s strategy to deal with these criticisms was quite deliberate—and clever. It consisted of two strategies, both designed to mythologize TCM as being a scientifically sound and harmonious “whole medical system” and to provide “evidence” in the form of testimonials that it worked... "Textbooks were written that portrayed Chinese medicine as a theoretical and practical whole, and they were taught in newly founded academies of so-called “traditional Chinese medicine,” a term that first appeared in English, not Chinese. Needless to say, the academies were anything but traditional, striving valiantly to “scientify” the teachings of classics that often contradicted one another and themselves..." The second part of the strategy was the dissemination of spectacular anecdotes to “prove” the efficacy of TCM.

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2013/10/25/chairman-mao-in...

https://www.google.com/search?q=traditional+chinese+medicine...

I don't argue with them. Because at one time I knew TCM was bullshit too.

Then we have this other cohort of people with chronic issues who exhausted, or are unsatisfied with, the treatments offered by western medicine. They go on to discover TCM, are healed and then swear by it.

I can't explain this stuff. I think it's weird, but it works.

I mean, you could say I'm a hypochondriac or I have some sort of psychosomatic illness... but I have the scans, labs, and diagnosis to prove it.

shrug

Except... I'm in that cohort. I've been through the gauntlet too - years and years and thousands of dollars of both real medicine and what I now accept to be fake, that I reached for in desperation. So, I see your anecdata, and raise mine. If only we had some rigorous methodology for determining which conclusion is the correct one, as far as we can tell from the current evidence...

Moveover - trying to present evidence for a field that >specifically< shies away from evidence-based conclusions is a rather silly, IMNSHO. It worked for Mao because he wasn't trying to cure anyone: he was explicitly trying to fool people.

Western medicine may be incomplete, ineffective and often wrong, but it's not founded in willful bullshit.

That being said, there are many ailments that aren't adequately treated by Western Medicine - either because we don't know enough yet or are still constrained by the profit motive to find solutions to symptoms, not cures and whole well being.

Needless to say, he healed my pain, and more. Sadly, he retired about 7 years after I met him. I've not found anyone like him since, and I've tried.