“Once upon a time I had a SECRET.. not a little fairy tale, embarrassing Secret, a Big, Painful, Nightmare of a Secret that I did not want my Co-workers and Boss to know about.”…………. (I had BAD BACK)
Do You Work Hard?
Are you convinced that the Career you have chosen to support yourself and your family is destroying your back and there is nothing you can do about it? ……..
Are you angry that the once high performance body of yours that worked hard all week and played even harder on the weekends is letting you down. …….
Do You just suck it up, Take something from the Medicine Cabinet when it acts up, go to work each and every day and do what you have to do regardless of the PAIN. …….
Well, I thought and did so too…until I met someone who knew what it would take to fix me.. Not just feel better for a little while. ..I mean fixed.
No More Bad Back. No More Concern about it going out again . No more holding back and taking it easy. No More weekends on the Couch. No more Fragile Back.
I now have a strong, healthy back capable of doing what it is designed to do……
Work and Play.
Let me tell you my story……..
It can happen walking up a hill, lifting a suitcase, watching TV or even while lying in bed. You would think it would have to be something big….like lifting something heavy at work….but that is not always the case. There is a feeling of something going ‘click’ in the lower part of the spine. There doesn’t have to be a passing-out stab of pain or lingering feeling of any kind but the person knows exactly what’s happened. They’ve ricked my back again. It may seem like just a little sprain at first but over the next 24 hours it is likely to slowly disable its unfortunate victim.
First … there will be a lack of flexibility in the back, then some pain on walking or bending with gradual stiffness spreading throughout the body. Eventually, virtually every movement is painful. Lying down may give some relief but it can be so bad that even turning over in bed has to be planned ahead.
Getting out of bed may involve rolling on to the floor and agonizingly raising to a crawling position before slowly being able to tease the body to its feet. Only holding yourself with total rigidity is bearable. Walking becomes more crab-like than human.
Worst of all, the afflicted person know full well, or if this is their first attack they are about to find out, this could last up to six weeks and it is likely to happen again within a year.
“Oh no, How long is this one going to last? A couple of days?( if I am Lucky)
A week? A month?
Here we go Again!”
(The Worse part of a Bad Back is that it keeps coming back to Haunt You.)
My first episode of low back pain happened in my 20’s. I was living in San Luis Obispo. Going to Cal Poly. My Major was Construction Management. I was spending the summer working for a contractor, building a custom home. I put in a full day of work and decided to take advantage of the long days of summer and get a surf in before dark. I surfed a fickle spot in Cambria called Exotic Gardens. I lived in the area for over 5 years. I never saw waves there as good as they were for the next few days. So, the next day after work I was back. The following morning, it hit, my back was out. It went out bad. I went to work. I wasn’t very productive. It was agony. No Surfing. It lasted about a week.
I graduated from college and landed what I thought would be my dream job. I was hired as an engineer for a construction company in Hawaii and the South Pacific. My specialty was building piers, docks, and breakwaters. It was a tough job……. Ok, now wait a second … I know what you are thinking…. Engineer … Boss… Easy Job.. Paper work… tell folks what to do…. Well No. That is not the way it worked. I was Green. I did not know what to do. I was thrown in with a group of Hawaiian Gentleman whom had spent their whole lives working in marine construction. Many of their fathers had spent their lives working in the trade before them. So, I was not about to tell anybody anything. It didn’t take me long to figure that out. I did my job, stayed out of their way, and I learned. Our jobs were often far from shore. No one around. When someone needed a hand I helped. I learned to run the equipment. I learned to rig, to cut with a torch, and to weld (not very good) I learned to do just about every job there was. There was nothing I wouldn’t do. I got just as dirty as everyone else. I earned their respect. I was a member of the Crew. A valuable member. Eventually, and I take a lot of pride in this, I was allowed to Join the Operating Engineers, Local 3. Some strings were pulled. You basically don’t get into the union unless you were born in to it or know someone. I was taken of salary and paid hourly. I tripled my income. The boys had a little fun after that giving me some of the less desirable jobs. But that is another story. ………. Yes, this college boy worked hard.
I played hard too.
I spent my free time surfing the big waves of Hawaii and diving in her clear waters. This was also demanding on my body. But all this activity caught up to me, and soon I found myself with a terribly painful back, again. In fact, sometimes my back was so stiff and sore that I had to lie on the floor just to pull my pants and boots on. The pain from my back would often shoot down my leg. I remember trying to do simple things at work that were just too painful for my back. I was scared! I was worried about losing my job, worried about doing my fair share at work, and worried I would be like this for the rest of my life. I had to do something, because it just kept getting worse. The episodes were coming more frequently, hurting more, and lasting longer. My back would go out. I would start getting a little bit better. It would go out again… I wanted out. I thought my job was sucking the life out of me. I thought that my surfboards were putting my back and livelihood at risk. I did not want put in my 20 years only to be a broken man with a bad back. I did not want to stop Surfing.
Something happened that would change my life for ever……….. I met up again with a girl I had known in High school. Real Trouble. She would later become my wife. Her brothers were chiropractors. With her encouragement I decided to give a chiropractor a try. The chiropractor did an exam, took some films, and then “adjusted” my spine. The adjustment didn’t hurt, it actually felt good. I got relief. In a short time I was doing much better, and again doing well at work, and again enjoying surfing in my free time instead of nursing my aches and pains. Chiropractic worked so well, and I was so impressed, that I went to chiropractic school myself
You would think I was out of the woods as far as back problems were concerned wouldn’t you… .. Not true, actually I was about to learn a big lesson………….
The hard way…
My Back Pain Came back with a Vengeance.
I didn’t fall or have something fall on me. I wasn’t working hard anymore. I was in good shape from Surfing and Snowboarding during all the free time going back to school afforded me. The cause of my pain could not be pinned down to a particular event (insidious). There was no good explanation. I had pain all the way down the back of my leg. A condition called Sciatica. I could not sit comfortably for more than fifteen minutes at a time. Driving a car was pure agony. I was not sleeping well at night. Often the pain would wake me in the middle of the night. I kept a hat, a coat and a pair of shoes next to my bed and for months in the middle of the night I would get up and walk around our neighborhood. Sometimes I did this a couple of times during the night. Walking would ease the pain enough so that I might be able to fall back asleep and get an hour or two more of rest.
My mind, thoughts, actions, movements, days & nights were consumed with my constant, ever present, sometimes more, sometimes less, nagging pain . I was grumpy with my wife, short tempered with my child. Pain is not conducive to proper social behavior. I was functioning, doing the minimum (what I had to do) but not much else. It was the worst time of my life. I was not having any fun.
The big question that haunted me was………
“ Am I going to be like this Forever?”
And, Yes I was in chiropractic school. I was studying back pain. I was being taught what to do to help folks who hurt, just like me. But I couldn’t help myself. I had free access and treatment from all kinds of chiropractic technique, gurus, teachers, and fellow students. I was hooked up to every kind of shocking, stinging, heating, cooling, stretching, rubbing, shaking machine out there. I applied every kind of goop, lotion, snake oil, and magic potion I came across. You name a back pain or body work therapy and I have had it. Nothing made a big difference.
Oh yeah, I felt a little better after this or that. Those little breathes of relief were awful welcome. But, I was getting downright discouraged. I wanted this fixed. How am I going help others if I can’t help myself?
Then something, again, happened that would change my life forever. The pieces of the puzzle would finally come together. It would just take me a long time to get it. I met another teacher, like my band of Hawaiian brothers who adopted me into their crew, who would patiently influence me and teach me how to finally heal myself. He was a guest lecturer at the college. His name is Dr. David Smith. He has been taking care of folks for almost 50 years. He gave me a chiropractic adjustment, and By Golly, I felt a little better. It didn’t last too long, but I had a couple of good days. And it had been a long time since I had even one of those.
“What was it he did to me?” I had to learn. So, I went to visit him at his office. And boy did I learn, the hard way. Dr. Smith pointed out why I wasn’t getting any better. I have a hard head. I didn’t listen. I was hooked on the relief I was getting from Dr. Smith adjustments. I was getting great success with my patients in the student clinic using Dr. Smith’s techniques. But I was still suffering. I suffered until I got it. I now believe that my suffering was actually a blessing, if I had gotten better after a couple of treatments. Beyond relief, I mean better. The lessons I was being taught would not have sunk in so deep and been so profound. I got it NOW.
I just hope and pray that my patients get it a little quicker then it took me!
Now I have a MISSION: to spread the word, to share what I have learned with others.
I gave up a career once because I thought the job was going to turn me into a crippled up, old man before my time. I was wrong.
Lets give your crew a chance to hear what I have to share.
I have a soft spot in my heart for folks in the construction trades. I was there once. My purpose is to share what I have discovered with as many people as I possibly can. I help people everyday in my clinic. I have helped lots of others whom have never stepped foot in my office.
A Note About the Story Above
The story above was written many years ago, back when I first opened my office.
In those early days I spent a lot of time out in the community giving “Protect Your Back” talks anywhere I could gather a few people willing to listen — workplaces, community groups, small businesses, and local organizations.
The talks were practical and straightforward. I showed people how their backs work, why injuries happen, and what they can do to protect themselves.
Sometimes those talks led to new patients visiting the office, especially when the group was local. Other times I was invited to speak professionally and paid a speaker’s fee.
I help people every day in my clinic. I like to believe those talks helped a lot of people I never laid hands on — people who learned something useful and took better care of their backs because of it.
