7 Easy Steps To Finally Get Rid Of Lower Back Pain
Christine Sutherland
What's the most common form of chronic pain on the planet? Lower back pain! And many people suffer from it for years, with no respite no matter what treatment they try.
If you are one of those people who have suffered from a long time and yet not been helped, it's highly likely that this article, especially the experiment at the end, will prove to be what you're waiting for.
YOUR LOWER BACK PAIN - CHRONIC OR ACUTE?
When back pain continues over a long period, despite treatment, we can usually attribute that to a peculiar type of pain called chronic pain. Chronic back pain isn't actually related to any injury or deterioration of the spine, muscles or nerves. We know this because studies show that there is no relationship between damage and pain.
Using x-rays of spinal damage, studies show that it's impossible to predict who will experience pain and who won't. Incredibly, there is no relationship between the damage and the degree of pain felt.
Chronic pain is not actually generated by the body, it is generated in the brain in response to normal signalling, and the proof of this lies in fMRI, or functional magnetic resonance imaging, which shows maps of the working brain. Brain maps of chronic pain look just like brain maps of intense emotion. This is very, very different to the brain maps of acute pain!
So this explains why your chronic pain might have persisted for a very long time, and if this is the case for you, then this article is crucial to your recovery!
YOUR CHRONIC BACK PAIN - 7 STEPS TO ELIMINATION
Step 1: Eliminating Stress. If you have chronic pain, your nervous system is behaving a lot like a faulty car alarm that is going off for no good reason. The more stressed you are, the more your pain signalling will behave in this way. If your nerves are jangling, your pain will be worse. So you need to make a decision to deal with the stress in your life, today.
Step 2: Consider how your emotions might play a role in your pain. Without doubt, negative feelings like anger, sadness, hurt, loss, etc, end up producing more pain. Some people think that it's not possible to just switch these off, and certainly it can't be done by willpower or positive thinking. But it can be done with BMSA (which you can read about and try out at the end of this article).
Step 3: Being Sociable. I know it can be difficult to mix with people when you're in pain, but social withdrawal or isolation is not only incredibly damaging to your general health and wellbeing, but it enhances your pain reactions as well. It's necessary to make an effort to mix with people in a way that has nothing to do with your pain, so that you can at least for a short time put your focus somewhere else, and get all the benefits that "social engagement" offers.
Step 4: Be more physically active. When people experience pain it's only natural that they want to stop moving and withdraw, and with acute pain that's actually sensible. But with chronic pain it's the last thing you should do because activity is essential to your recovery. In fact it's essential to even the most basic physical and mental health.
Step 5: Have an interest outside of yourself and your family or work. Focus is an amazing thing. If we're focussed on our pain (because there's nothing else more absorbing going on) then the pain will actually increase. It's not merely that we perceive that it's worse. It IS worse. So even if you're depressed and feel you can't be bothered getting into anything "interesting" it's essential that you choose something and involve yourself in it regularly. A good program will provide great support to you in that way.
Step 6: Check Co-Dependency. You might be surprised to learn that pain depends on environmental factors, and that if your brain thinks that the pain is useful in your circumstances, it may well try to keep it going! Is your pain serving any useful purpose (no matter how twisted) in your family life? Maybe not, but it's definitely worth checking out!
Step 7: Use BMSA (Brief, Multi-Sensory Activation). BMSA is designed to re-train your nervous system so that it stops producing chronic pain signals. Most people get relief immediately, and over 50% of people can eliminate their pain totally. Another 30-40% can reduce their pain dramatically, all through using BMSA.
AN EXPERIMENT WITH BMSA
Before you try any treatment, it's a good idea to "dip your toes in the water" and have some experience of what it's like. Not everyone responds straight away, but many people do, and so it's worth while going through the following steps to see what happens for you.
Get into a comfortable position, sitting or standing, and take a moment to think about how your pain actually feels to you. In your own words, make up a sentence that accurately describes precisely what you feel. Here's an example:
I have this stabbing pain just above my tailbone I have this burning pain in the middle of my lower back but a bit to the left Etc, etc, etc.
In these examples we've tried to demonstrate that you need to describe the sensation of the pain (the type of pain it is) and also exactly where it is in your body, in our own words. As well as doing this, you'll need to give your pain a pain rating. This is where you decide, out of 10, how strong your pain is. 10 is the worst it could possibly be, and 0 is no pain at all.
The next step is to repeat that statement about a dozen times, and each time you say it you follow it with something silly (or at least something that has an emotional impact very different from the thought of the pain). As you talk out loud, you'll be tapping all over your body (for instance 6 quick taps on your head, 6 quick taps on your chest, 6 quick taps under an arm - wherever you can reach). You might get even better results if you walk around at the same time, especially if you're following imaginary shapes or letters on the floor.
In the example given above "I have this deep ache near my left hip", for instance, you could be tapping along saying:
"I have this deep ache near my left hip, but chocolate is an important food group."
You repeat this whole sentence a dozen times while you keep up the tapping process. That's called a "bracket". At the end of the bracket, keep focussing on the pain, and as you do that tap repeatedly on your chest while you take a deep breath through your nose and then exhale forcefully from your mouth.
Once you've completed that first round, take a minute to check that pain. Has the level gone up or down? Is the pain in exactly same place or does it seem to have moved? Is the type of pain the same, or has it changed it some way? Are other body pains more noticeable now?
BMSA is much more than this, of course, but this little exercise is a simple way to experience the fact that it can at least impact on your pain. Because everyone is so different, it's impossible to predict what might happen now, whether you got an obvious effect from this or not. Some people might find their pain continues to decrease. Others will find that it comes back exactly the same or almost exactly the same. If you stick with it (see the book "The Pain Train - Time to Get Off") you're highly likely to get the result that you're after.
Author Christine Sutherland also is a researching clinician and also an expert in treating http://www.realhelpforchronicpain.com/back-pain.html back pain. You're welcome to read more articles on http://www.realhelpforchronicpain.com/back-pain.html back pain on her web site.
|
