PROLOGUE
HI!
Welcome to one of the commonest health problems on earth. At my age (and I have
batted for a good many decades now) hardly a day goes by when someone or the other
does not complain of back pain. It is a popular conversation starter and a condition that
everyone seems to empathize with. Even if you, dear reader, have never suffered from
back pain (HOW LUCKY CAN ONE GET!!) you must know someone who has or had an
attack of back pain.
The problem with back pain is that it comes back (excuse the pun
please!) again and again with increasing severity. In a few of us
the pain may persist for months or even years despite numerous
treatments, including surgery. It can affect our work and our
daily routines to such an extent that we begin
to live in perpetual fear of suffering another attack of back pain
that could leave us bed-ridden. Wouldn’t it be wonderful therefore
if we could say goodbye to back pain and be able to carry on with
our lives as before?
YES YOU CAN provided you have access to the right information and are able to
understand how back pain occurs. Unfortunately, although tons of material is available
from an infinite number of sources, none of them provide a substantial review of current
thinking on the subject for the ordinary lay person or a unified approach to the
management of back pain. Newspaper or magazine articles or even books on back pain
discuss a variety of options and then leave it to you and me to make up our mind as to
which course of action to follow. To add to the confusion, we get anecdotes about
wonder cures from friends, relatives and just about anybody who happens to be around.
At the end of it all, the vast majority of us simply soldier on, clutching at various
therapies, in the vain hope that one day something will work and we will be all right.
The problem with
back pain is that it
comes back again
and again with
increasing severity.