My Story: How I found a cure for severe lower back pain

It started more that 22 years ago, with a bed. I was 17 years old.

My mother had asked me to move it for her and, after some teenage protests, I grudgingly agreed. So I marched up the stairs, making sure that I stomped loudly on each step as I did so (I was a charming teenager). I entered the bedroom and rolled up my sleeves.

I was super fit - I swam competitively - so a light bed like this wasn't going to be a problem for me. I took the mattress off, leaving just the light wooden bed frame, and started to lift.

It wouldn't budge. I thought this was strange, but just assumed that the bed was much heavier than it looked. More effort was clearly required! Still bent over the bed, I pulled harder and harder. Still Nothing. I started to feel annoyed. There was no way that I was going to let this bed win. So this time I lifted with all the strength I could muster.

My Lower Back 'Popped'

Just as I noticed that the corner of the bed was wedged into the wall, something 'popped' in my lower left back. I dropped to the floor in agony. I lay there completely powerless to do anything at all. The pain was so excruciating I could hardly breathe - let alone move!

After 3 hours of lying on the floor, though still agonizing, my severe lower back pain had subsided just enough for me to consider moving. I had to get myself to bed, though this seemed a monumental task.

I began the world's slowest crawl, inch by wincing inch!

After a few horizontal days and plenty of pain killers, the pain got much better and I was able to resume my life as normal. And being 17 years old, I thought nothing more of it. I put the whole episode down to a nasty strain and assumed that was the end of it.

Wrong again!

Time passed and my back often ached. But I was having fun with my friends, had a new girlfriend and had been offered a place to study Philosophy at an excellent University - so things were looking up!

But pretty soon I started to realise that I hadn't seen the last of my 'old friend' after all. Without warning and often without an obvious trigger, I would get regular bouts of severe lower back pain that would put me out of action for a day or two. And like the first time, while in pain, the simplest things would be a real challenge - like brushing my teeth or getting dressed.

And this would happen at least once a month!

Enough was enough. In my mid 20's, I finally decided that I needed to get some help with my stubborn problem. I looked through the local telephone directory for a therapists that spcialised in severe lower back pain. But who should I see? How would I know if they were any good?

Over the next few years I saw a countless different back therapists - chiropractors, osteopaths, acupuncturists, physiotherapists and others. Each had different approach to treating severe lower back pain and in addition to undergoing their treatments, I would question them relentlessly about every aspect of their profession - their training, diagnostic tools and therapeutic techniques. I wanted to better understand severe lower back pain, so that I could make sense of my condition and make informed decisions about which treatments had the best chances of helping me.

Some treatments seemed to help for a while, but my back never felt quite right and eventually I would be in pain again.

As more and more time passed, I was starting to wonder if severe lower back pain was something that I was going to have to live with for the rest of my life - a depressing thought indeed.

I started researching severe lower back pain with great dedication. I read everything I could get my hands on. Books, medical papers, internet forums and articles. I tried various back pain products and investigated a variety of exercise techniques...

But things were about to get worse.

I was 31 and had just spent a fantastic three months traveling around Australia - with my temperamental back for company of course! The only down side to visiting Australia is the length of the flight - between the UK and Australia it's around 24 hours. Now I don't know about you, but for me that's a long time to be crammed into a small seat, stuck in a metal tube and hurtling through space...

The day before the flight, I had decided to do something really stupid - something I had never done before or since. I had asked a doctor in Sydney if I could have some sedatives for the plane flight. I told him that I didn't like flying - but the real reason was that I wanted keep myself as drowsy as possible so that time would pass quickly on the flight.

The pills did the trick and every time I felt the effects wearing off, I'd take some more. As a result, stuffed into my seat like a rag doll, I slept for much of the flight without moving.

After we landed, I noticed a bit of a burning sensation in my lower back, but ignored it. When I got home I was pretty jet lagged, so decided to have a rest. Lying on my bed I became aware of a prickly sensation - an irritating tingling - swirling around both my legs. I assumed it was some kind of pinched nerve - that it would pass - and so I went to sleep.

It didn't pass. Now I had my regular bouts of severe lower back pain AND continuous prickly sensations in my legs. Sometimes it was worse than other times, but it was there all the time. It was a horrible sensation, making things like clothes and sheets feel uncomfortable against my skin.

A visit to the doctor, confirmed that I didn't have anything obviously wrong with me - and that my tingling was unlikely to be the result of the sedatives I took on the plane - but he recommended that I should have some further investigations to make sure there was nothing else going on.

So now, in addition to seeing various back therapists for at best temporary relief, my doctor sent me to see an Orthopedic Surgeon at my local hospital. He examined me, told me that he thought the 'tingling' problem might be coming from my neck, and sent me for some MRI scans on neck, brain and lumbar spine - in order to rule out the possibility that anything nasty was causing my symptoms.

I will cover the things that I think you need to know about MRI scans, doctors and surgeons (with respect to severe lower back pain) elsewhere on this website - see the 'treatments' section. For now though, you just need to know that (with the exception of a small bulging disc in my neck), everything came back negative.

So my periodic severe lower back pain and my infuriating prickly sensations continued unabated. These symptoms often made me feel depressed, irritable and antisocial. I was also furious with myself that I had been so stupid as to make my condition worse by sitting in an plane seat for 24 hours without moving!

And now, in addition to the regular bouts of severe pain and the prickly sensations, my whole back including mid, upper and neck felt exhausted all the time - stiff, achy and exhausted.

And with every month and year that passed, it seemed more likely that I was going to have to live with these symptoms forever. Nobody seemed to be able to really help me. I felt increasingly powerless and resigned to a future coloured by severe lower back pain.

And like others who suffer chronically with severe lower back pain day in day out, I was finding out first hand how difficult it can be for other people (like family and friends) to really understand what you are going through. After a while they don't want to hear about it anymore - even if it is making you constantly grumpy! It's a frustrating situation for you and them - and anyway, they are powerless to help you.

You realise that unless you've had day after day dominated by severe lower back pain yourself (or sciatica etc) - and with no apparent light at the end of the tunnel - it's hard for others to fully understand how it can take make you feel. How chronic lower back pan can start to dominate your thoughts...

This miserable pattern continued month after month and year after year.

But despite my frustration, I still remained determined. My resolve was hardening. I was going to beat this thing - whatever it took. I was not going to allow this problem to ruin my life.

I returned to my research with a renewed determination and immersed myself in every therapeutic exercise technique I could find (e.g. yoga and pilates) in the hope that now finally I would make progress.

THE BREAKTHROUGH

I was now 34 years old and despite years of research and experimentation, I was still struggling to make real progress in my quest to find a permanent solution for my severe lower back pain. I had rejected surgical intervention (for important reasons that are covered elsewhere on this website - see 'Surgery') and still nothing I did seemed to work very well or for very long.

I was researching the subject as usual one evening, when I stumbled on to a website I'd not come accross before, written by a back specialist in North London. Though his background was in Osteopathy, his approach to treatment was a little different from most others and it caught my eye. He treated lower back pain by focusing on aligning the hips and the lower spine. I liked what I read, so I made an appointment to see him.

During the treatment, he performed a simple technique on me to align my lower spine and pelvis. I felt a little 'pop' right at the bottom of my spine and IMMEDIATELY felt my lower back pain subside.

I was amazed. How could such a simple technique have made such a difference so quickly? Not only had this technique apparently stopped my pain faster than almost anything I'd tried before, but my back immediately felt straighter, stronger and more balanced. He explained to me that this wasn't unusual and that in fact most of his lower back pain patients found this technique to be highly effective in combating their pain. He'd been using it successfully for many years.

Over the next few weeks, I performed this technique regularly, and my condition continued to improve. By keeping my hips and lower spine aligned, it seemed, a great deal of pressure was being removed from my lower back. And the more research I did on the relationship between misalignment and lower back pain, the clearer it became that actually misalignment played an important role in MOST lower back pain.

Targeted stretching techniques

In addition to my recent discoveries about misalignment, my research had started to reap rewards in other ways too. I was now starting to uncover some very specific and focused stretching techniques that were working wonders with the prickly sensations in my legs. And these exercises were not the same ones that are suggested in the standard information booklet you can get anywhere. These really worked and were specifically designed to combat back pain. (For more information, click on back pain exercises).

It still seems strange to me that NONE of the dozens of back pain specialists I had seen over so many years had suggested I try these techniques? Did they not know about them?

Developing the Backchamp

The discovery of this simple technique to align my lower spine and hips had got me thinking: if this technique had helped me so much, then there was a good chance that it would help others in a similar situation too! There must be a way of making it easy for people to try it for themselves...

As chance would have it, my therapist had already come to this conclusion himself and was in the early stages of developing a simple device that would allow people to do exactly this. So we decided to join forces and concentrate on making this device a reality. To this end we enlisted the help of a group of brilliant design engineers and, several prototypes later, we had developed the Backchamp.

I am proud to say that since launching the Backchamp in 2006, it has helped thousands of people with their severe lower back pain.

So if you have chronic lower back pain, I HIGHLY recommend that you try the Backchamp - there's nothing else like it and it really works!

For more information, or to try the Backchamp under a 60 day moneyback guarantee, please visit the Backchamp Website.

IN CONCLUSION

So there you have it. I hope that my story has been of interest to you and that it has helped you to realise that you too can find the information to cure yourself of severe lower back pain.

So, if you haven't already, I suggest you explore the rest of this website. And remember, sometimes all you need is one nugget of information to propel you along your road to recovery. So keep reading, keep learning and stay positive!

Here's wishing you a healthy, pain free back!

Ben Gill lives in London UK, with his wife and three daughters.



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