Case Summary  |  Continuing to live life fully through the agony of lower back pain

The situation occurred when I attempted to do a simple, everyday task. I reached down to get a pair of socks out of the bottom drawer of the dresser and fell to the ground as my back simply gave out! I could not get up! I was in an enormous amount of pain and was helped to the bed. For treatment, I went to the chiropractor for 5 days in a row and got some relief but still could not even get into bed correctly. For example, I had to stand by the bed and simply fall into it because I could not bend over. I was not going to work and basically was bedridden. Also, I was eating over the counter pain medication like it was candy. After realizing that the chiropractor helped, but did not solve the problem I decided to try stretching, as I had been an athlete most of my life and know the importance of stretching. I took a chance that I was not hurting my back further and the treatment for the back pain that actually worked is as follows. First, I lie on my back and bring my legs over my head and simply let gravity stretch out my back as my legs lower very, very, slowly toward the ground. This is an exercise that I had been doing for years to limber up for running. Normally it would take 60 seconds for my feet to touch the ground as my feet bent over my head. Now, because I had wrenched my back, it took nearly 12 minutes. I was patient and although it was painful, I thought it was going to help and it did. The stretching in this manor took away the back problem as soon as I got up! For the last 7 years, I have not had that problem again and continue to do this exercise daily and I am doing fine. I am back to my usual free weight workouts as well as running and I never had to go back to the chiropractor again!