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russ
1 Posts |
 Posted - 08/21/2004 : 12:57:49
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Howdy,
I've been reading a few older posts here (and have read elsewhere, too) that some people have attributed their low back pain to having their pelvises tilted in an incorrect way. I know it's hard to actually illustrate what this might look like without a drawing or an image of some kind, but can someone out there who's had this experience describe it for me? I'm curious to know if my back pain could be caused by holding my pelvis in some un-natural and/or super-tensed up way. How can you tell if you are doing this?
Thanks!
Russ |
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Dave
USA
1864 Posts |
Posted - 08/22/2004 : 09:10:53
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Austingary has not posted here in quite some time; he is the founder of this board and attributed part of his pain to holding his pelvis "in rictus."
It was always fun to debate Gary on this issue. I believe that focusing on how we hold our pelvis is thinking physical, and this is contrary to what TMS is all about. In my opinion, if our pelvic muscles are tense, that tension is likely to be TMS related.
When I tried to figure out if I was holding my pelvis "incorrectly" I found that my lower back pain got worse. I attribute that to the fact that I was thinking physical, which is the first thing you must stop doing to combat TMS.
Now, I certainly believe it is possible for us to develop bad habits. Some people have a tendency to suck in our stomachs when standing. I can see how if we do this on a regular basis, it can lead to muscle soreness. It is possible that some people have bad habits while sitting. For example, if you are constantly slouched in a chair, maybe some of your muscles are working overtime and will get sore. If you are overweight or in poor fitness, it can lead to muscle soreness. This is all common sense.
But if you have chronic low back pain, in a variety of physical circumstances (sitting, lying down, standing) with accompanying nerve involvement (e.g. shooting pains, sciatica) it is likely to be TMS, and the focus should be on your emotions.
At the same time, if you become aware that you are holding your muscles tense, treat that tension exactly the same as TMS. Consciously relax your muscles and explore your emotional state to try to figure out why you were tense in the first place. |
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tennis tom
USA
4749 Posts |
Posted - 08/22/2004 : 10:52:11
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Dear Russ,
It is a shame that Gary is no longer posting. He was a very valuable resource to the board on a broad range of health topics as well as it's founder. Hopefully he's on vacation and will return with new insights. Perhaps he is "cured" and has moved on--nothing wrong with that. After all the slings and arrrows he has endured, I can't blame him. I hope he will check in from time to time, I miss him.
After Gary discussed bad phyical holding habits, I realized I had one also. I unconsciously lift my right heel off the ground. I traced this to my hip muscles holding. So, now I consciously make myself "put my foot down". I agree with Dave that the pain is a signal to shift the thoughts to the emotional when one feels the pain. Easier said than done. I recently had an instance of TMS pain movement that put me over the fence to think about my hip/TMS/arthritis more in emotional than physcical terms and I'm getting better.
Time can heal all wounds but our minds can do it too and faster. We can fix sometning using a physical approach--rest, ice, compression, ETC. That approach fixes only that one part. We leave ourselves open for subsequent injuries to the myriad of other body parts. With TMS thinking we can bannish the fears that prevent us from using our bodies to their fullest potenial.
It takes some time to accept Dr. Sarno's theory on a gut level. But it probably took some time to develop the faulty psychological thought patterns that create TMS pain.
Keep readng Sarno and keep doing whatever your heart desires. No fear--just do it! |
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FarmerEd
USA
40 Posts |
Posted - 08/22/2004 : 13:35:04
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Hello Russ,
You wrote:"I've been reading a few older posts here (and have read elsewhere, too) that some people have attributed their low back pain to having their pelvises tilted in an incorrect way."
I sometimes think people get the cause and effect wrong. Folks get back pain and they "look" for a physical reason. They find they are holding their pelvis in an unnatural way or something else and assume that is the cause. I contend in most cases the pain is the cause of them holding their back or pelvis in an unnatural way.
Every doctor I went to told me to give up soft chairs and beds and keep my back perfectly straight as much as possible, supported by hard upright chairs. I walked around always conscious of my posture, afraid to bend my back. If someone had come along and told me my muscles were tense they would have been right, but this was an outcome of my pain and trying to avoid injury, not the cause of it.
Think for a minute. When you have a true physical injury you automatically adjust the way you move and do things to protect it. If you did this over a long enough period of time it would become an ingrained pattern. For someone to come along and conclude the adjustments were the cause for the pain would be wrong, they are an effect of the pain.
After I accepted Sarno's theories and began to put them into practice I went back to sitting in soft chairs and lying on the couch. Muscles that had been unnaturally tense automatically eased up as I slowly lost the fear of injuring my spine.
I'm sure most of us have seen people who have deformities either from birth or injury that cause them to walk in very unnatural ways. In many of these cases their posture is what we would consider awful, yet most are without chronic, debilitating pain like with TMS.
We run a U-pick farm and each year about this time we have lots of Korean folks come to pick grapes. They all squat down with their backs hunched over to get under the vines to pick. To this day it gives me goose bumps to see them do it for up to an hour at a time. You hardly ever see one of them go down on one knee with a straight back to pick. When they get done they will often gather around, squatted down with backs hunched over, and divide the grapes. These are not young people either. They are often in their 40s, 50s and 60s. This is just the way they grew up and they think nothing of it. The reason I cringe is because my mind has been conditioned by mainstream medicine to "believe" this is bad for your back. These people have not been conditioned that way so it has no effect on them.
I think focusing on posture as a cause of the pain is exactly what your mind would like for you to dwell on as Dave has said.
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2scoops
USA
386 Posts |
Posted - 08/22/2004 : 16:36:00
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| Very good advice farmer ed, I could not agree with you more. If you think back in time people were very hard laborers. Now we have all these devices to make work so much easier, but there has been an increae in back pain and chronic pain. Our bodies have been made to seen like they are weak. I know I never experienced chronic pain in my back until I had x-rays, until I learned about structural abnormalities. I know I wish I would have never went to the doctor regarding a sore back. |
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Tited pelvis causing pain?
