Back pain expert Dr. Sean Wheeler answers questions for those who suffer from chronic low back pain based on his new book, UPRISE: Back Pain Liberation, by Tuning Your Body Guitar.
HOW CAN I ACHIEVE BACK PAIN RELIEF?
The time and effort dedicated to this goal will be different for each individual, but it is achievable.
Your first assignment is to read Chapters 1-5 of UPRISE, without skipping ahead. Take from these chapters how the body works and doesn’t work, and why so many have been unable to overcome their chronic back pain.
Next, read Chapter 6 to understand the Tune Me process, its four physical goals and seven principles in committing to treatment and achieving freedom from chronic back pain to resume a full live.
WHY NOT SKIP AHEAD TO CHAPTER 6, AND APPLY TUNE ME TO MY BACK PAIN TREATMENT?
It is important to first understand the cause of the condition before deciding upon treatment.
The need to understand why we are not making progress in back pain treatment can not be overstated, and is answered in UPRISE Chapters 1-5. The current pain treatment system is broken and failing patients. The author has narrowed WHY it is broken to three interrelated factors:
1. Back pain leads to instability in the back, which leads to disc breakdown,
2. Back pain is not static — one kind of pain causes another, which makes back pain a progressive condition, and
3. Muscle weakness that develops following chronic pain is different than has ever before been described in back pain.
To break away from the broken healthcare treatment system, you must have a grasp of these three factors. It is by understanding these three factors you will stabilize your quest to be part of a new system that actually works for you and your pain.
WHAT’S WITH THE GUITAR?
Body Guitar™ is a new phrase that refers to something [your body] as being the same as another thing [a guitar]. Thinking about your body as your Body Guitar™ — with your spine the neck and strings of a guitar — creates a new conversation about chronic back pain leading to a new understanding — the concept of Bracing Muscles™ — to bring relief to those who suffer.
This body to guitar comparison offers a simple way to understand a complex medical topic, by helping to translate how our bodies work and must be kept in shape.
Guitars and your body — both of which are musical instruments as demonstrated, perhaps, by how many of us sing in showers — must be tuned, adjusted and cared for throughout the lives of each.
In addition, Dr. Wheeler, the author of UPRISE, who has committed his career to understanding and liberating sufferers from chronic back pain, loves music and plays the guitar.
THIS IS A LOT TO TAKE IN. WHAT CAN HELP WITH MY FOCUS?
As he explains the issue of muscle weakness, you will learn the muscles to which Dr. Wheeler refers are Bracing Muscles – a particular type of muscle that must provide a bracing function, through all day endurance for your low back to remain stabilized.
Focus on the fact that bracing muscle performance is key to your stability and healthy back. When these muscles perform with all day endurance, other muscles [known as action muscles] can do their job. But when bracing muscles are unable to provide all-day endurance it can cause havoc with action muscles. Often, this involves action muscles doing work they were never meant to do. This “confusion” among muscles builds and causes the debilitating back pain many know quite well.
HOW SHOULD I APPLY WHAT I HAVE LEARNED?
Integrate the four goals and seven principles of Tune Me into your daily life, again as discussed in Chapter 6 of UPRISE.
With you as your chief advocate, find your “people” — your healthcare team — to help you further understand your body. To treat your pain for the short term so that next, over a few short months though your own self-discipline and quality physical therapy, you can be liberated from chronic back pain.
Apply what you’ve learned, in a disciplined plan to restore your body’s bracing function — achieving endurance and stability — by way of good posture, flexibility in your action muscles, and mobility of the joints surrounding your bracing muscles.
WHEN WILL I BE LIBERATED FROM CHRONIC LOW BACK PAIN?
For most chronic sufferers, within 180 days.
While UPRISE does not claim all who suffer from chronic back pain will completely alleviate their longstanding back pain, Tune Me can provide significant, measurable improvement liberating the sufferer from the daily debilitating effects of their chronic pain.
The objective is to liberate the sufferer from their chronic pain to live a full life.
Tune Me has been developed to halt the progression of back pain and decrease pain significantly. This is no small achievement. It is revolutionary. And, as you will understand from Chapter 7 of UPRISE, a conversation worth continuing.
