Good evening, as everybody already knows I’ve had a back issue for around 16 months now. I’ve been trying to stay positive with barbell medicines content, but my back does not seem like it is going to get better (really hasn’t gotten better since the issue occurred). Always have burning pain in my lower back and I can barely sit in class in school. It constantly bothers me 24/7 and I just want to stop dealing with this so that I can live a normal life. I know I most likely do not need surgery, but if I’m not getting better wouldn’t that be the best option?
Hey Shafiq, I have seen you posting about your back injury in various parts of the Barbell Medicine Universe and I’m sorry you’re going through it. My first question would be, why do you think surgery would fix the issue? If you’re familiar with the content we put out you know surgery is not a panacea of solving pain or else we would recommend it much higher. If it were as easy as just advocating to “stay positive” my job would be much easier though. It is always frustrating when going through an injury, especially one that has been going on for the better part of a year. Sometimes, setting a goal of being out of pain is the wrong approach to the problem. When the focus is always on means with which to get out of pain, it unfortunately tends to keep pain on the radar and makes it harder to do. It’s kinda like trying to forget about your ex by always listening to y’alls favorite song.
Another approach may be to start focusing on what you can do and work on building up from there. To your example of sitting in class, if you can get from sitting for 15 minutes in class to 30, you’re still not getting through class but that is progress. Most of this is about looking for the small wins that overtime add up to bigger wins. At the San Diego Pain Summit I head an awesome analogy for overcoming pain where the speaker asked the audience to hold a sheet of paper in front of their face. In that instance the paper represents the person’s pain. Initially, it is all you can see except for what is in the periphery, but with the right strategies, the paper can move further away from your face, allowing you to see more of what is going on around you. Overtime, the paper will get so far away that it does not even effect your field of view, even though it is still there. The problem typically is that the focus tends to be on getting rid of the paper, instead of moving it away.
Think about it in terms of obtaining your degree. If you constantly focus only on getting your degree, there is a high probability that you will miss steps in your education that help you get there. Instead, the focus tends to be on what you need to do day to day or week to week in order to reach the end goal. Dealing with pain is not much different in this regard.
So with that I’ll ask some more questions, what is it you think you need to do in order to get yourself over this and why? What steps can you take in order to start working in that direction?
A normal life is an interesting concept as if you ask most people who are active on the forum, or even in your classes if their life is normal, it is likely rare you would get a “yes” answer from any of them. We all have stories, histories, at least one crazy family member that make our lives anything but normal. That is what tends to add to our lives if we let it. The story I typically tell directly related to this is if we woke up Saturday morning during college football season and turned on Gameday and they did a piece on a player from some school that went “Jimmy was born to millionaire parents, he had a 4.5 GPA and is double majoring in biochemistry and physics, he actually won the lottery on his 18th birthday off a gift from a friend, the day before he signed with the University of South Carolina, he married his high school sweetheart and somehow the Browns traded away their number 1 pick to the (insert your favorite team) this year.” All of us would objectively hate Jimmy and not just because he went to the University of South Carolina. Instead we tune in for the story about a player who’s parents got divorced when he was five but the local YMCA coach took him in. His brother was killed in some tragic event and he almost didn’t make the cut to earn a scholarship. We all want to root for the guy that has overcome adversity, but we all want to be the guy who had it made.
Stay positive man, you will get there. Find something you can have some success at and start working on that. Let your successes build up over time. You will have setbacks, but those aren’t blocks to reaching your goals, they’re part of the story that makes it that much better.
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Thanks for the thorough reply! Not sure if you or anyone hefe has heard of an account called barbell rehab, but I have an in person consult set up with him on Friday. Hoping it helps
Hey, Shafiq - just wanted to say: Hang in there! The thing I’ve learned from my experience of injuries that take a long time to resolve is that progress isn’t necessarily linear. You can feel like nothing’s happening for months and then suddenly things will improve rapidly. Good luck with the consult!