All right, hi folks I'm Bob Shrupp, physical therapist. Brad Heineck, physical
therapist, and together, we are the most famous physical therapist on the Internet. In our opinion, of course, Bob.
I just got my flu shot Brad so don't hit me in my left
arm today. Oh stick to the right arm? Okay. Today Brad we're gonna talk about 10 big
lies and myths about back pain. These are ones that Brad and I commonly hear
patients talk about and they have this certain thought process, and I think it
gets in the way of them healing, like it should. Yeah. Like psychologically. Yeah,
that's a big component of them, good health. Right, and by the way if you are
new to our channel please take a second to subscribe. Oh there are a few people
out there, Bob. Good eye. All right, we provide videos on stay healthy fit
pain-free and we upload every day also go over to Facebook and like us. Over the
next couple weeks we will be giving stuff away. I promise. I you know I keep saying
that, but I actually do have some that are coming up right now, so. So you're
not dragging people along. Yeah this isn't gonna be one of the big lies that we're
putting forth so. Let's talk about the first one Brad. The first one that I just
had a patient that was just like this. The, the belief was that the spine is
really delicate and easily injured. It actually, the spine is pretty strong and
flexible. I mean. I mean, if you just think about looking at athletes how they get
football players. Right. Pound it every weekend and not only that just look at
when you see someone that goes to an automobile accident and you think how
did they get through this without more injuries, particularly to their spine,
you know. Right. iIt is really, it's constructed incredibly well. Yeah, it's a
marvel.It is. But I think you got to the point where this guy felt like if he did any
movement at all he was gonna make it worse and that made it worse because if
you don't move your spine is gonna get worse. I mean movement is the key. You
need to find the movement that you can do. Right. Keep doing that one. And avoid
the ones that are irritating it, and that's what therapists, that's our
job is to help you figure that out. Yeah at the end of this video we're going to
show a few things, you know, like if you are in the acute phase, you know, maybe
you don't want to move too much during that day. Right. Or two days, but once you
get through that, then you really want to get moving asmuch as possible. Number two. If I have back pain
when I'm young it's gonna get worse as I age. That, this is. A lot of people think
that, don't they. Right. Yeah, I remember I went to back courses. A four-day back course. Very
detailed and they pulled up a whole study, showing that that whole thought
concept is like is wrong across the board because. What is it again? Well the
highest incidence of back pain occurs between 30, 35 and 55. Mm-hmm. And a lot of
times it actually starts getting better after that, believe it or not. Sure. Quite often I'm
in the beginning better age. Right, actually, so am I. I just turned 55. So yeah. My
back is actually improving I guess maybe there's the only exception to that is
osteoporosis where right when you get older, but that's not everybody. There's,
there's a certain people certain and they're doing much better at
preventing that. You're really going to want to watch your posture, as you get older and as you're younger.
But, just keep this in mind and this is a theme we're gonna keep drumming on, is
the body wants to heal. Right. It's, it's amazing how the body can heal if you let
it. So don't, don't get in it this way. All right. Now, number three. My father or
mother had back pain and problems, so I'm gonna have it, likely have it too.
Right.Do you hear that much? Well no, yeah, people think that you know, it's
genetic, it's gonna, you know ,but that's not true. No, there's no genetic
predisposition. It's just common. I mean, you know, so I hear it all the time, when somebody
goes, yeah my mom had back pain so I I knew I was gonna get it. Right. That's not
true. The thing is 80% of the population and I've even read as high as 90%
of the population has back pain bad enough that they actually miss work one
day. Throughout their life. At least one day, so that that's a high percentage so you're
likely, you're more likely to have a parent that had back pain than not
so. Right. So, I had one. My mom has it, but my dad didn't ever have back then
yeah it's kind of weird because neither one of my parents had back pain at all
and I've been dealing with it since I was in high school but I had an accident.
An injury and other things that compounded it. Lifestyle you you led, Brad
I'm not surprised you had more accidents. I'm surprised you're alive is right. Number
four. An MRI. I got to read my own writing, or other diagnostic test is needed to
diagnose my back. I just had a person like this, too
I don't know why they're not doing an MRI right away, and the fact is you want
to come up with a successful plan based upon what we're seeing. Try that, if that
doesn't get better then you go do the MRI. And you did a whole video on this
Brad. Right, well there's been study, I quote some studies, a really good study
on this and the thing is is and another common scene in the medical community
and it's whether it's MRI or x-rays is you want to treat the patient, not the
x-ray. Right. Or not the MRI because if you treat the the scan you could be
missing big components that are a big part of the problem. And that actually
leads us the next one Brad, you know let's say you have a scan and and
they find an abnormality or back problem on the scan and that needs to be cured.
The fact is they find lots of abnormalities on the scan that have
nothing to do with your back pain so I'm just going to mention this book we
mentioned it once before, it's called Paindemic P-a-i-n-d-e-m-i-c. It's by
Melissa Katie. She's a Doctor of Osteopathy she ,she, it's a good book, but
what I like is some of these statistics she gave. So on, what they did is they
these were people that had no back pain but they did a scan on them and just to
give you, I'm not going to bore you with too many numbers here, but at age 20 they
found 30% -37% of people had disc degeneration, but no pain. The scan showed
it, yeah, and so, and they're living a normal life. Right, right. So you're not
going to treat them for something that's not causing a problem. That steadily goes
up as you get older. So let's just say our age, Brad. 80% of people have disk
degeneration, but no pain. Right. So I mean what happens is you know I'll go in I
have back pain. They'll find disc degeneration. Oh my god, I have disc
degeneration. Right. I gotta have that treated. I mean surgery or something. Some
injections.Right, and and the fact is that probably has nothing to do with it.
It's probably more muscular or tendon or something. Right, something else. So it's
the same with disc bulging and facet degeneration they have the same thing.
And this is just not one specific study there's been numerous studies that support the
same idea. Yeah, so I'll put this book and a link on our website. Sure. All right where are we
at Brad? Number seven. A lot of people think that there's just one standard
cure for most causes of back pain so I got back pain what do I do?
what's the cure? Right. What we got to do this, this protocol of exercises or
treatment, and I'll get better, but. That's not how it works. It's' so complex, the back,
that and what you have is so many different disciplines that are in
treating back pain. You have chiropractors. You have physical therapists.
You have doctors of osteopath, that they all have a different approach and Brad you made
the comment before we even started. You ,you could easily go to five different
therapists, physical therapists, physical therapists and get treated with five
different systems of back treatment or five different chiropractors and they all
could treat you with a different protocol so Yeah. And, the
fact of the matter is, you might get better with all ten of them. Right. There
might be some that won't work and other ones that'll you'll flourish on. It's
really that's it's a back pain as a tough one in some ways. One key to
take away from that Brad, is that if you say oh I tried physical therapy, didn't
work, well you might do better by trying a different physical therapist.Right. You may
not, I mean but I'm just saying. Get a second opinion. that's gonna be different,
different option. Number eight. There's ten of them, remember. Rest is the
key to recovery and Brad I just had this discussion, - yes when you just hurt your back,you're
probably not going to want to feel like jumping around,
doing much.If you're walking like this and it hurts, well ,that might be a good
time to take a half a day or possibly a day but get a cold pack on it ,get a
comfortable position, and leave the inflammation settle down, but then you
got to get moving. You got to get moving. We're gonna show you an exercise you can
do in just a few minutes that you can do you know almost day one, maybe or two and
then you also want to try walking as soon as possible. Right. Especially, if you
can, and that kind of fits along with number nine here Brad a lot of people
believe and this is an old belief, but I still see doctors that talk about
it, is that extension is bad for your back. You want to show what extension is
Brad. This is extension as as far as them in the medical terms.
This is flexion of the back, and at one time back in the 1950s, everything was
flexion. If you got a back problem you got a flexion stretch those muscles out
and since then particularly with Robin Mackenzie there's the whole theory and
treatment method has changed dramatically over the last five years. I've seen
orthopedic doctors even say that you're not supposed to sleep on your stomach
yet because that puts you into a little extension. The idea is they
think you're jamming the joints ,but you spend your whole day doing bending
forward things you need to stretch it the other direction and that gets the
joints moving and lubricated and. Right as well as the discs, as well as the discs. there's a
lot of biomechanics in the discs that are corrected that way, just balances the
system out so to speak, we could spend, well, we have spent
videos just talking about that. And then number-10. Long-term pain
indicates that I need back surgery for my back pain and and this is again I'll
recomend this book again. She talks about how, she making this statement, it
was kind of a bold statement, she said she's talking to other doctors and
people are in the pain management business. Mmm-hmm. They wouldn't go to
near surgery, back surgery with a ten-foot pole. Sure. Unless, unless you
have such things as you know a tumor or drop foot or you know pain and weakness
going down into the foot because they're saying a lot of times you go in you have
the surgery and you know now you had the surgery and you're still not better.
No right, and those are the people that therapists oftentimes either come out of
surgery it's not successful and they're the ones that say why did I ever go to
surgery. Again, we would never, ever say not to have surgery is there definitely
are instances which I just had one recently a guy came in he goes, he goes
the doctor said to see you, but he goes I really think I need surgery he had
dropped foot already Okay. He had pain. We tried extension, nothing
took it. I go you're a candidate and then he went in he had a good surgery and
he's doing fine now so. Very quickly. Very quickly. Yes. Yeah if you've got that, that
nerve is being impinged. We've got some videos on that, too ,but so but yeah there
are cases for it but it's not the blanket thing that surgery's the answer.
Lets just real quickly Brad, why don't you show what, like if on the first day of
pain, what you might do. This is one of my favorite things for vast majority of
people with back pain we've found anecdotally, in our clinics, is this works
well. This is the leg wedge. We'll have this listed down in our Amazon products
if you look down below in the description. If it's an acute pain, you
just injured it, it's very sore, you're not gonna put a hot pack on it. You're
gonna put a cold pack on it. After it settles down you may want to go with heat
but initially, and Bob in all honesty, Saturday, boom we're cutting trees down I
invited three other guys over and we had a tree cutting trimming party and after
four, I used to bill do that all day long, after four hours I was walking a little
crooked, a little painful, and I told the guys I
says this is it.You were done. I just picked up branches lighty after that, and that
night, I went in this position and I was sore and I actually fell asleep like
this on the living room floor, but I woke up I woke up at noon or midnight went to
bed the next day 90% better. So you need I was so happy. Yeah, two things you
should take away from that, one, he knew when to stop. Right. And then two he knew
what to do, but the next day he got moving right away. Right. You know the
pain had settled down I was walking I did not go back out to cut more trees
down.I had normal, you know, calm day. So two
movements that generally we try to get people to do right away one is rotations Right.
This is just a great one if it hurts in one direction don't do it. Just go the
other direction. So if it hurts going towards the countertop I'm just gonna go
the other direction and work it there and oftentimes you'll find you do that a
few times going back the other way it'll loosen up a little bit, but listen to
your body don't use a philosophy, no pain no gain cuz that's not gonna get you
anywhere with back problems. You want to find the motions that feel
comfortable.You want to pop up real quick, there? I'll show one real quick
I'm gonna show one last one real quick, we're running way over here. Oh my
Gosh, Bob. Again the other one that you want to try to do for most people is to try to
get some extension going or some extension movement, so you're on your
your stomach, you're keeping the pelvis down, you're not lifting up
like this, and you're just trying to get some more
movement, more movement and eventually get up to here. There you go. We got whole
videos on that, but alright let's let's call it in. Thanks. Everyones clicked off by now
anyways
Thank you