Treat Your Own Back

I am a complete skeptic regarding most self-help health and fitness books. Most seem to either give too much background information to justify why their program is superior to everyone else's, or they are written as an advertisement for being treated by them or buying their equipment and supplements. Not McKenzie. This is a quick read, right to the point, short book that tells you why most lower back pain is caused by poor posture. Usually years of poor posture. It points out that Chiropractic & Osteopathic treatment usually brings only short-term relief. And if you go to them for evaluation, spinal manipulation will usually be recommended because that is what is in their arsenal to treat your back. The book illustrates a few exercises and positions to use to alleviate the problem. And suggests using a lumbar support for sitting and possibly sleeping. (Yes, it does mention that McKenzie has lumbar supports for sale.) I've never had a problem with my back until recently. I started having back and rib pain after an almost 4 hour flight in the exit row of an American Airline plane. I couldn't recline the seat at all and there was zero lumbar support. Quite the opposite—the seat back was concave. I am 6' 2" tall and my back was killing me by the time I got off the plane. It was so bad, I went to get a massage for my back at my hotel. It helped, but didn't rid all of the pain. The flight back was better, but I was hurting afterwards. The rib pain actually got worse over the next three weeks. My back was also acting up and hurting at odd times. Then I saw this book. After reading the reviews, I decided to try it. Now I know I've had bad posture most of my life. I slouch when I sit. And I've been sitting at my computer a lot over the past year or so. 12 hrs a day or more. My office chair has almost no lumbar support. It never bothered me before. Nor did slouching in the couch as I watched TV. Now it's agony after less than an hour or so. I read the book and it makes sense. The stretches started to help immediately. I'm doing the simple exercises (which are really stretches) and watching my posture. And my lower back is much better. My rib pain is gone unless I start to slouch again! I use a small pillow for lumbar support (until my proper lumbar support pillows arrive from Amazon). I do the stretches and it helps a lot. It's going to take some time to reverse decades of bad posture, but this book has made a huge difference in relieving my back pain. Wow! I'm skeptical no more. It's not a placebo effect. It actually works for me. Simple to do. Now, I'm trying to make it a habit. Correct posture and stretches every two hours. The pain comes back when I forget and slouch while sitting—otherwise, it's gone. Outstanding! I recommend this book to anyone who has lower back pain. Read it before you decide to go to a Chiropractor. Try the stretches. See if they work for you. It's a whole lot cheaper than a series of manipulations and a lot better than taking muscle relaxants and pain drugs. If it doesn't help then go to the doctors. (McKenzie states this as well.) I am in no way affiliated with McKenzie or his products. Just a person who found pain relief by using his book. I hope it works for you as well as it did for me. This book was the best $25 I've ever spent—except maybe for a marriage license.

This book is a must read for anyone experiencing back pain. Big or small, this helps with it all. The concept is so simple. I wish I would’ve got this a decade ago! Read this book and do as it says. If you have “mysterious pain” like my doctors said I did, this takes the mystery out of the equation! Simple science and methodology lead to nearly instant pain relief for some. I experience pain relief as soon as I get done with my stretches. I have experienced overall pain reduction. Most importantly, I’m in control of my back now. It no longer rules me.

I feel like this book has good tips for back health. My physical therapist recommended it. However, I found that I had to do these exercises every few hours to ward off pain, so my life still wasn't back to normal. I wanted my normal, pain-free life back. I was diagnosed with 5 bulging discs in my spine. Even after months of physical therapy, I couldn’t sit or drive for more than 20 minutes, I had to do certain exercises every few hours to ward off pain, and even then I experienced some level of discomfort or pain daily. My PT said I would deal with this off and on for the rest of my life. I have always been fit and active, so this was not good news to hear. One day I received an email from a client who told me about Dr. John Sano, who uses the mind-body connection to help patients heal from chronic pain and illness. I was highly skeptical and rolled my eyes. But then I saw that his book has over 1,200 reviews on Amazon and almost 5 stars, so I decided to check him out. His theory is that inner rage causes the pain. The body tries to distract us from our deep feelings by causing pain, and the pain is caused by the body decreasing oxygen to that part of the body. The pain is real. It’s not something in your head (as anyone who experiences chronic pain will tell you). But the source of the pain and the cure can be found by tuning into those emotions. I watched Dr. Sarno’s interview on 20/20 and his 2-hour lecture on YouTube (his lecture is no longer available for viewing online, but you can find other interviews with him and clips from his lecture online). His book focuses on back pain, but as he mentions in the video, his method has worked for people with all kinds of chronic pain and conditions. After watching the videos, I journaled about what was happening in my life when I was injured – my frustrations, self-criticisms, and fears. I used some techniques I learned as a clinical hypnotherapist to dig a little deeper. Within 25 minutes, my pain was completely gone. It has been almost a year since that day, and I have been able to do whatever I want. I can sit or drive for as long as I want, I go running, do yoga, do cartwheels…anything I want to do, pain free! I don’t even have to do my special exercises from my physical therapist. I am completely healed. The funny thing is that Dr. Sarno doesn't think you can get in touch with what is actually causing the "inner rage". I think through normal talk-therapy, you probably can't. But if you find a good clinical hypnotherapist, you can go back in your mind to just before your pain started and recognize what was going on in your life then. What were you really frustrated about? They can help you work through those emotions. I never ever thought I would be able to write a story like this. I know it sounds unreal. But it worked for me and over 1200 other reviewers on his amazon book. I highly recommend checking it out to eliminate your pain completely. I'm not getting paid to write this, and I have no connection to Dr. Sarno. I just want you to know that if you are feeling hopeless about ever being pain-free (which I was), check him out. This book by Robin McKenzie is great for managing back issues and pain. So I give it 3 stars for getting me halfway there. But Dr. Sarno's method, to my complete surprise, helped me eliminate it.

Really good introduction for clinicians and patients to look at different ideas and acceptable treatment options.

I've had low back problems for the past 15 years. It first became chronic about 15 years ago - and I noticed that every time I would go jogging my low back would go out the next day. So, after getting no help from my doctor, I decided to stop running. I started biking and playing other more low-impact sports instead. But for the past 3 years or so I've been injuring my low back every month or two despite me trying to avoid the activities that caused the pain. Unfortunately that was everything from chopping firewood, lifting concrete blocks (for work), to tying my shoe! My work is physical and I'm an athlete. I've been seeing a chiropractor for the past two years or so, hoping that was the answer. While the chiropractor's adjustments were helpful short-term (ie for 48 hours, at $60 per adjustment), I was given no tools to help myself. This was a chiropractor that supposedly believed in an integrated approach, including physical therapy and massage. It was all useless. I spent $1,000s in treatments to no avail...matter of fact, my injury rate increased gradually the more I saw the chiropractor. I began reducing my level of physical activity, and still was having more injuries as time went on. An injury every two months eventually was becoming more than once a month..what used to be serious pain for 24 hours after the injury became pain for a week or so, which I could barely walk around without throbbing horrible low back pain. Eventually my chiropractor started blaming me for my re-occuring problem. Saying I was overdoing it or lifting with bad form, which, in retrospect, was total b.s. knowing what I know now. I'm 34 years old, and I've been feeling increasingly hopeless about my condition. I figured maybe I'm just over the hill, and should replace good soothing outdoor physical activity with watching tv or video games. Or maybe blow my brains out since life isn't worth much without being able to use an otherwise healthy and capable body. Since buying this book, reading it and implementing recommended exercises - starting about 3 months ago, I've not had any back injuries, and I've been INCREASING my level of physical activity gradually. The best part is, for once in my life I have an UNDERSTANDING of why my back was going out so regularly - something my chiropractor never really explained, or maybe never really understood himself. Also, there are good recommended exercises both for maintenance as well as for when the back pain is approaching....right at that moment of first tweak. There have been several occasions when working, or while involved in some physical activity, in which I feel those first ominous signs of pain. I used to have to just brace myself and walk around very carefully until the inevitable hit...the throbbing horrible pain and angst that comes along with it...now I have immediate stretches I can do right after that initial twinge that cause the pain to subside and disappear within a couple of minutes. Holy crap - I wish I'd been implementing this for that past 15 years or so that I've been struggling with back issues. Anyway, time will continue to tell how this is all working out. But for now I'm feeling more optimistic about my body than ever before, and I'm even beginning to run again (and learning about how to deal with knee pain as well, which also was a problem I got little to no help for from the medical establishment.

I have herniated disc problems and after a bout in my early 30's in which I could literally not walk or stand the McKenzie method was taught to me by my physical therapist at TIRR in Houston. To start I was doing the exercise that are outlined in this book every four hours, after mobility started to return I was doing them 3 times a day followed by 20 minutes of brisk walking. When finishing my physical therapy mobility had returned and I was relieved of all the pain. I was given a copy of the book from TIRR to continue on my own. I was told that I should do the exercises in the book on a daily bases twice a day to keep from having another bout of such intense pain and immobility from happening again (as soon as I wake up and right before I go to bed). I probably did the first 3 months however out of sight out of mind. Over the last 15 years whenever I have an onset I have used this book with all the very simple exercises to refresh my memory of which exercises to do when. Usually within 3 days I can relieve myself from all pain and continue twice a day for a couple of weeks. I am sure if I did do the back exercises every day I probably would not be having the return or immobility and pain. I have purchased and gifted this book to several friends and neighbors when they have complained of chronic back pain. All that have read it, followed it , and done the exercises have said that it has relieved their pain and increased their mobility as well. To previous reviewers that gave it less stars for being to simple or exercises that they can find on the internet, no one wants exercises that are complicated, hard to understand, and the whole point of the book is the convenience to not have to do research on the internet but to have all you need in one place. If you can do better on your own that's great but if you were doing so great with your internet research you never would have been looking for a book to begin with. It works, I only wish there was a kindle edition so I always have a copy available to me when I travel. If you are suffering from back pain I highly recommend this book, but you do need to follow it in order for it to work.

this book is ~100 pages in length. It was written in 1980 and updated 9 times. It contains a lot of filler/fluff text, which if removed would boil this down to a pamphlet. My key takeaways.. the majority of back pains are problems with the moving parts, which are often brought on by bad posture. ligaments stretch out and take time to recover. thus, pain ensues when as they don't provide the spine support as they normally would do. pain normally persists for ~1 week. when pain is present the best positions for comfort is standing/walking. support lumbar area when sitting and avoid prolonged sitting. best posture is to ensure your lordosis (hollow in low back - lumbar area) is visible when you stand/sit (good posture). to resolve pain, spinal manipulation (think chiropractor) creates patient dependency and thus is undesirable in the long run. strengthening your core (exercise) is key to helping your body structure support the spine. the book illustrates several exercises, however some common exercises for good back health are excluded from the book. some of the included exercises aggravate back problems even more. when in doubt see a back specialist (e.g. sports medicine doctor). An MRI can show spine detail which is helpful in diagnosis. to avoid aggravating back pain when sneezing/coughing, it is advised to stand up... or if sitting, arch backwards a tad as we have tendency to bend forward when sneezing/coughing (bad posture). a supportive/non-sagging bed is ideal, but not super firm as it doesn't let the body conform to the mattress to provide needed support. the book suggests sleeping with a night roll (rounded pillow) behind your back for back sleepers or under your waist if you're a side sleeper. this might be useful if your bed is too firm or not supportive. the book suggests you can regain all your prior sport hobbies (jogging, tennis, football) after you recover, but I find that is not true. some of those activities can aggravate the back/spine. a personal tip: if you are experiencing back pain, try holding your core tight as you walk (think sucking in your abdomen/gut). it helps relieve pressure on your spine.

Interesting book that explains back issues. I don't agree on all of them but it was a good read and a good price.