'I thought it was only backache' | The Independent
After visiting a string of experts, Andrew Taylor discovered the cause of his back pain. But why did it take him 18 months to get the chilling diagnosis? Thursday 2 December 1999 00:00 GMT
Go to a doctor complaining of a bad back, and the response you can expect is similar to the one you would get if you told a barman that your wife didn't understand you. There's a sort of sympathetic contempt for back pain - a feeling that everyone gets it, that there but for the grace of God go I, and that you just have to learn to live with it. My back had nagged at me for years - leaving me alone for months, then jabbing me without warning. But then, after a bout of pneumonia, it came back with a vengeance. I knew it was time to get something done.Go to a doctor complaining of a bad back, and the response you can expect is similar to the one you would get if you told a barman that your wife didn't understand you. There's a sort of sympathetic contempt for back pain - a feeling that everyone gets it, that there but for the grace of God go I, and that you just have to learn to live with it. My back had nagged at me for years - leaving me alone for months, then jabbing me without warning. But then, after a bout of pneumonia, it came back with a vengeance. I knew it was time to get something done.
The pneumonia should have rung alarm bells, but it didn't. So should the fact that the pain was somehow different from anything I'd felt before - a constant, debilitating ache, rather than sudden flashes of agony. I couldn't run, or even walk fast; stepping unexpectedly off a kerb sometimes laid me out, gasping in the gutter. But pain is hard to describe; once you've said, "It hurts just - there, doctor", you've gone as far as most people do with their GP. I guess I should have tried harder to find the words.
Chris Bulstrode, professor of orthopaedic surgery at Oxford's Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, has little time for prevailing treatments of back pain, whether conventional or unconventional. "Practically all back pain will get better on its own," he says. "The only thing to do in the meantime is to control the pain, and that's best done by a combination of painkillers such as Nurofen and paracetamol, which you can buy over the counter. The vast majority of patients shouldn't go to their GP," he adds, "because in the end, he will push them on to a back surgeon, and the golden rule is: 'Don't go near a surgeon'. Surgeons are there to cut, and most back problems aren't improved by cutting."
Back pain costs the UK economy approximately £6bn in lost production.
Back injuries cost the NHS £480m a year.
Statistics have shown an increased prevalence of back pain among 16-to-24-year-olds. Some of this may be caused by heavy, badly designed school-bags, which are often carried on one shoulder.
For further information, write to BackCare: National Organisation for Healthy Backs, 16 Elmtree Road, Teddington, Middlesex, TW11 8ST, with a cheque for £3 payable to BackCare Reuse content
'I thought it was only backache' | The Independent
After visiting a string of experts, Andrew Taylor discovered the cause of his back pain. But why did it take him 18 months to get the chilling diagnosis? Thursday 2 December 1999 00:00 GMT
Go to a doctor complaining of a bad back, and the response you can expect is similar to the one you would get if you told a barman that your wife didn't understand you. There's a sort of sympathetic contempt for back pain - a feeling that everyone gets it, that there but for the grace of God go I, and that you just have to learn to live with it. My back had nagged at me for years - leaving me alone for months, then jabbing me without warning. But then, after a bout of pneumonia, it came back with a vengeance. I knew it was time to get something done.Go to a doctor complaining of a bad back, and the response you can expect is similar to the one you would get if you told a barman that your wife didn't understand you. There's a sort of sympathetic contempt for back pain - a feeling that everyone gets it, that there but for the grace of God go I, and that you just have to learn to live with it. My back had nagged at me for years - leaving me alone for months, then jabbing me without warning. But then, after a bout of pneumonia, it came back with a vengeance. I knew it was time to get something done.
The pneumonia should have rung alarm bells, but it didn't. So should the fact that the pain was somehow different from anything I'd felt before - a constant, debilitating ac
he, rather than sudden flashes of agony. I couldn't run, or even walk fast; stepping unexpectedly off a kerb sometimes laid me out, gasping in the gutter. But pain is hard to describe; once you've said, "It hurts just - there, doctor", you've gone as far as most people do with their GP. I guess I should have tried harder to find the words.
Chris Bulstrode, professor of orthopaedic surgery at Oxford's Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, has little time for prevailing treatments of back pain, whether conventional or unconventional. "Practically all back pain will get better on its own," he says. "The only thing to do in the meantime is to control the pain, and that's best done by a combination of painkillers such as Nurofen and paracetamol, which you can buy over the counter. The vast majority of patients shouldn't go to their GP," he adds, "because in the end, he will push them on to a back surgeon, and the golden rule is: 'Don't go near a surgeon'. Surgeons are there to cut, and most back problems aren't improved by cutting."
Back pain costs the UK economy approximately £6bn in lost production.
Back injuries cost the NHS £480m a year.
Statistics have shown an increased prevalence of back pain among 16-to-24-year-olds. Some of this may be caused by heavy, badly designed school-bags, which are often carried on one shoulder.
For further information, write to BackCare: National Organisation for Healthy Backs, 16 Elmtree Road, Teddington, Middlesex, TW11 8ST, with a cheque for £3 payable to BackCare Reuse content