Lower back pain is the single most common chronic pain, experienced by 60-80% of the population at some time in their lives. Even though many people can achieve healing through good physiotherapy or other treatment programs, roughly 20% of lower back pain sufferers never get relief.
It's those long-term sufferers who have the most to gain from reading this article.
IS YOUR LOWER BACK PAIN ACTUALLY CHRONIC PAIN?
Back pain can be considered to be "chronic pain" when it persists over a long time without improvement, despite following treatment recommendations. The fascinating thing about chronic pain is that it has little or nothing to do with actual damage or injury.
For example, if you were to look at a bundle of x-rays of people's spines, you couldn't tell from the damage or deterioration just who had pain and who didn't. The fact is that people who have little or no damage can feel a lot of pain, and people with significant damage or deterioration might be completely pain free.
You may be quite shocked to hear that chronic pain is exactly the same as emotional pain, but in fact fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) shows that this is the case. Acute pain uses different nerve paths, but a map of chronic pain looks just like a map of anger, or a map of sadness.
So this explains why your chronic pain might have persisted for a very long time, and if this is the case for you, then this article is crucial to your recovery!
ELIMINATE YOUR BACK PAIN IN 7 STEPS
Step 1: Take out the stress. Have you ever seen a car alarm that would go off for no good reason? Maybe a slight breeze would blow and off it would go! Your nervous system can be just like that, all tightwired and ready to produce pain at the slightest provocation. By taking out the stress, you help your system to calm down and behave normally.
Step 2: Emotional Reactions. Do you have strong emotional reactions to things? This doesn't help chronic pain because it heightens the reactivity of your nervous system. You might be surprised to learn that there are actually ways to switch off unwanted emotional reactions so that you feel calm and can think more clearly, even in a crisis. Check out www.bmsa-int.com, which is a site for medical practitioners who are using this method very successfully with their clients.
Step 3: It's called social engagement. Yes, you definitely need to mix with people in a way that gives you pleasure. There's a whole field of science devoted to the health advantages (mental and physical) that comes from being involved with people socially, so when you have pain, you especially need to pay attention to this.
Step 4: Be more physically active. When people experience pain it's only natural that they want to stop moving and withdraw, and with acute pain that's actually sensible. But with chronic pain it's the last thing you should do because activity is essential to your recovery. In fact it's essential to even the most basic physical and mental health.
Step 5: Have an interest outside of yourself and your family or work. Focus is an amazing thing. If we're focussed on our pain (because there's nothing else more absorbing going on) then the pain will actually increase. It's not merely that we perceive that it's worse. It IS worse. So even if you're depressed and feel you can't be bothered getting into anything "interesting" it's essential that you choose something and involve yourself in it regularly. A good program will provide great support to you in that way.
Step 6: Take a look at your relationships. Who are you dependent on? What would happen to that relationship (good and not so good) if your pain suddenly disappeared? Who leans on you or would like to lean on you? What would happen in that relationship if your pain suddenly disappeared? Pain can serve a very useful purpose in maintaining co-dependency, so it's worth checking out they dynamics of your relationships.
Step 7: Use BMSA (Brief, Multi-Sensory Activation). BMSA is designed to re-train your nervous system so that it stops producing chronic pain signals. Most people get relief immediately, and over 50% of people can eliminate their pain totally. Another 30-40% can reduce their pain dramatically, all through using BMSA.
TRY OUT BMSA FOR YOURSELF
We'd like you to try out BMSA for yourself to experience how it works. It might look unusual to you because it's unlikely you've used anything like this before. The aim is to mix up sensory signalling, and so it does need to be at least a little confusing.
Get into a comfortable position, sitting or standing, and take a moment to think about how your pain actually feels to you. In your own words, make up a sentence that accurately describes precisely what you feel. Here's an example:
I have this deep ache near my left hip I have this stabbing pain just above my tailbone I have this burning pain in the middle of my lower back but a bit to the left Etc, etc, etc.
Notice that you're describing the type of pain, and where it's located. Now rate that pain out of 10, with 10 out of 10 being the most awful pain you could possibly imagine, and 0 out of 10 being no pain whatsoever.
The next step is to repeat that statement about a dozen times, and each time you say it you follow it with something silly (or at least something that has an emotional impact very different from the thought of the pain). As you talk out loud, you'll be tapping all over your body (for instance 6 quick taps on your head, 6 quick taps on your chest, 6 quick taps under an arm - wherever you can reach). You might get even better results if you walk around at the same time, especially if you're following imaginary shapes or letters on the floor.
If my sentence were "I have this deep ache near my left hip", I would start this tapping, all the while saying:
"I have this deep ache near my left hip, but butterflies are crunchy."
Say this 12 times, tapping away, and when you're done, start tapping on the top of your chest, just focussing on the pain, take as deep a breath as you can through your nose, and then blow out as forcefully as you can through your mouth.
Once you've completed that first round, take a minute to check that pain. Has the level gone up or down? Is the pain in exactly same place or does it seem to have moved? Is the type of pain the same, or has it changed it some way? Are other body pains more noticeable now?
This is just a little taste of what BMSA can do, but of course it's not the whole picture. The book "The Pain Train - Time to Get Off" spells out much more detail and steps you through a personalised program designed to eliminate your pain permanently.
Author Christine Sutherland also is a researching clinician and also specialist in treating back pain. You're welcome to view other great articles on back pain on her web site.
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