It was a great humour when a young man in his forties (40s) worked into the crowd that came for the free physiotherapy intervention exercise conducted for back pain sufferers at Naze near Owerri. The programme was organized by Rev. Fr. Julius for his parishioners, last week Saturday at St. Jude’s Parish Naze of the Catholic Archdiocese of Owerri. The said young man never pretended about his debilitating back condition when he was refused a chair to sit and wait for his turn: “look at me in my 40s carrying the back of a 90yr-old man,” he retorted.
Has debilitating back pain made you look older than your actual age? Many young men and women are going about their vocations and businesses in distress, pain and agony with disabled back coupled with pain radiating down the arm, across ribs or legs!
Are you opportune to see the countenance of victims of excruciating back pain? You can really count the number of forced wrinkles on their faces each time these victims have bouts of the symptoms. The victims are depressed, easily irritated. The may be emotionally and physically in distress. Primarily, pain in the back is subjective and invisible. Later as it becomes chronic it could begin to manifest on the victim’s countenance and even affect the way he or she walks (gait).
It could begin to cause some secondary and serious problems. Victims may begin to limp, weep and unable to walk distances, and could finally be bed-ridden. It may further interfere with bowel movement, urine control and penile erection. Most deformities in elderly people today are visible consequences of untreated or improperly treated acute back pain that later metamorphosed into chronic back pain and becoming disabling.
Unpalatable stories about the effect of disabling back pain are many. The disabilities caused by back pain abound everywhere on the globe. Lost opportunities caused by back pain symptom are numerous. It has even crept into marriages causing strained relationships: A husband to my patients had confided in me, to advise the significant partners not to deny him her conjugal obligation. Recently in Lagos a man called me informing me that upon her wife’s visit to my clinic for therapy, i should please advice her not to deny him of the ‘gift.’ The wife had this pain that originates from the back down to one side of the upper buttocks, the hip, and thigh down the knee and would feel as though the hip would yank out when she walks. This is very common with most young women. And because the ladies think that since the troubled hip is in the vicinity of the conjugal action, it is therefore not wise to blissfully engage in that euphoria which portends danger and could worsen the pain and even cause dislocation of the hip joint and be disabled. Well that is the fear of back pain victims who have not found reputable therapist, knowledgeable in anatomy and the biomechanics of the back structure. In the interim the victim might assume poses that is less harmful to his or her back. Bluntly speaking, I would advise that you look for skilled physiotherapist who is vast in physiopathology of the back structures and obtain dramatic relief.
Many back pain victims have lost their cherished office jobs. Their social engagements have been restricted. Important roles played by people suffering from back pain, have been reduced drastically. Just mention it. All to this monster called back pain. Many people are where they are now because of the restriction placed on them by their disabling back pain. They are unable to attend to office work, engage in meaningful livelihood. Conjugal obligation has been interfered. Some men have long stop becoming breadwinners because of back pain disability. Good number of people has .gone to early retirement from their various vocations and professions just because of back pain. They have tried all they could therapeutically (orthodox and unorthodox) just to see if the pain could give them some respite. Many have carried their disturbing common waist pain, mid back pain and neck pain to prayer houses just to seek for divine solution.
Common back pain could be mystifying. A health problem that could not be fixed effectively with drugs has continued to be elusive to modern medicine. Surgical intervention which most people apparently hope has come to the rescue is not without some unpalatable outcomes. Really the option of surgery helps more than it hurts, but some surgeries reduce only some of the patient’s pain and other surgeries are completely unsuccessful; range of motion is reduced and pain is not.
There is no gainsaying that Back pain has continued to remain mankind’s oldest and most stubborn agony! In my practice as musculo-skeletal physiotherapist with interest in back issues, I would wish that back pain victims should exhaust maximally the benefits of non-surgical, non-invasive spinal decompression approach provided by skilled physiotherapists. A reputable physiotherapist that knows his onions would dexterously begin to correct the anomaly on your back. Don’t allow back pain to control your activities. Kick the pain off your back now by visiting competent physiotherapy outfit now.