The Burden of Back Pain

The burden of back pain extends far beyond the physical agony suffered by countless patients the world over.  The true cost of dorsopathy affects the entire individual, limiting them in more ways than can be imagined.  Back pain sufferers are known to be haunted by chronic and recurrent symptoms for years, or even decades, making their misery one of the most constant companions in life.

We all are affected by back pain in some way.  Statistics show that many of you reading this actually endure back ache yourself.  This is no surprise, since more than 80% of the adult population suffers some type of serious back pain at some point in life.  Statistics also show that many never recover.  Maybe you have avoided the burden of dorsopathy yourself, but know many people who have to bear it.  I am sure it is rather scary to see how the pain affects them and how much they focus on it day to day.

Let’s take some time to examine exactly how back pain controls so many lives and the consequences it produces in chronic sufferers.  Instead of focusing on the physical symptoms, I would like to describe the many psycho-emotional and social effects of the pain and how dorsopathy can become the single most dominating factor in a person’s existence.

The most obvious effect of ongoing back ache is the functional limitation.  Many patients endure decreased anatomical function due to either structural restriction, or more commonly, psychosomatic conditioning.  This begins the pattern of “CANS” and “CAN NOTS” which often dominates patient behavior.  Patients begin a slow decline in their activity levels, getting less exercise and developing a long list of prohibited behaviors.  This often leads to depression, obesity and general malaise.

The pain often comes on at the most inopportune moments in life.  Once a patient endures their first flare up at a critical time, they are forever afraid of making plans for their future, since they never know when the dreaded pain will return with acute fury.  This further isolates patients, driving them deeper into lonely and desolate mindsets.  Career, family, travel and personal aspirations are all put on hold, often indefinitely, as fear takes hold of their hearts and minds.

Patients see their own desperate conditions growing worse by the day, but have little hope of breaking the downward spiral and rising from their torturous conditions.  Many become despondent and talk about their pain non-stop.  Others completely close themselves off to the world and refuse to interact with most people, since they are truly ruled by their pain and feel that non-sufferers expect too much from them.  Most of all, virtually every patient becomes incredibly frustrated, since they have surely tried a plethora of treatment modalities without success and have grown weary of the illogical and maddening excuses given to them by care providers.  These poor souls usually ask themselves what they did to deserve such utter torment and why no doctor can seem to cure them or even provide any substantial relief.

What I see throughout my time working with back pain sufferers is a scarily similar patient profile which seems to emerge regardless of the diagnosed causation or symptomology.  The patient literally loses the will to fight anymore and becomes a victim to their pain.  This expresses itself in several possible ways, but always has dire consequences for the back pain sufferer, their family and the lives of those close to them.  The first method of expression is the patient who simply gives up and resorts to constant pharmaceutical use.  These patients numb themselves with powerful cocktails of oral and injected drugs which barely control the pain, but certainly do prevent a normal life.  The second way is to seek surgical interventions which typically end badly, leading to complete disability and eventual drug dependency.  The last common expression is the person who becomes so disheartened with the medical system that they pursue year’s worth of symptomatic treatment with an alternative care provider.  They never enjoy real relief and instead struggle through ups and downs and all that these unpredictable events entail in their lives.  No matter how the patient winds up, they are conquered in spirit and physically useless, making them little more than hollow shells of the once bright individuals they truly were.

So, with all this doom and gloom, is there any hope?  Of course… If not, then what is the point of writing this to begin with?  The major issue with the back pain industry is the epidemic of misdiagnosis.  This can occur due to simple iatrogenic error, but is more commonly linked to the actual source of chronic back pain being tied to the mindbody connection.  Since medical providers are barely educated in the psychosomatic process and since the basic idea that the mind can indeed contribute, perpetuate or actually cause physical pain is against the grain of the Cartesian medical standard, patients are doomed to their fates.  They will likely die blaming some innocent and coincidental spinal condition for the pain which deprived them of life, liberty and hope, when all along the source was an easy to rectify process of the subconscious mind.