My sincere advice to victims of disturbing back pain is to fight their back pain by talking about it! Quietly taking the purported medicines for disturbing back pain and setting off to work would only give you transient relieve.
How long would you continue this cycle and dangerously delaying the evil days of functional impairment, disability and perceived pain intensity? Talk to your doctor for referral to reputable physiotherapy centre with expertise in back pain management
In my observations as a columnist and also as a facilitator in so many workshops and seminars on this health challenge – common back pain – I have discovered that talking about your back pain could be of great advantage to you as a victim. So many text messages from beneficiaries of Back Pain Care Foundation free intervention treatment, testify to this. Many of these beneficiaries never bottled their discomfort, distress and pain. They complained about it in their families, at the offices, market places, offshore fields, etc. and eventually they got succor to their back pain challenge. Letters from mail and text messages confirmed it.
Letting out your common back pain problem to friends, relations etc could be directing you to the solution. Testimonies abound of many people who got the pain in their backs eliminated or dramacally reduced and had tremendous relief just because of letting others hear their complaints. Many people are silent or secret sufferers of this monster called back pain; they will not tell anybody about it; they quietly lunge for their back pain drugs in the drug box by the side of their beds or office drawers in secret. Many, indeed, have carried their back pain from their youth to old age and this has, in one way or the other, impaired their functionality or disabled them. This is partly because of ignorance, negligence, or not being rational about the proper health facility to attend and get expected and satisfactory relief to their back pain. Some probably have played themselves into the hands charlatans who could be professionals in other health fields but are specifically untrained in the biomechanics of the back and would not provide appropriate recipe for the needed relief to the back pain sufferer.
Elder Tajudeen, 46 years old, a high profile procurement officer with the Federal Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism, Abuja, was highly uncomfortable with his back pain challenge that he made everybody in the office know his plight. “Please, who can help me locate the best place to get my back pain treated? All the places I have been referred have not been satisfactory,” he narrated.
A driver to the minister, according Tajudeen, heard his complaint and quickly mentioned to him our new physiotherapy outfit at Kubwa. Tajudeen did not waste time to locate the place in Kubwa.
According to Tajudeen: “I booked an appointment with the physiotherapist for my nagging back pain that has crept into my life for more than 10 years while I was a young in the job. He actually worked on me for three weeks, in Kubwa. Now I can assuredly say that my pain has virtually disappeared. I can now do those things I used to do before I had the back pain. I can now walk longer distances without stopping to rest my back; I can sit for longer periods without discomfort, have blissful sleep, and climb staircases without panting and improved conjugal performance. This is great.
“I have repeatedly phoned my elder sister in Nigeria from Nebraska, US about my ailing right hand. The doctors in the Nabraska call it cervical spondylosis. My sister had severally called me to come down to Nigeria and visit one reputable physiotherapy centre in Port Harcourt. After three years of flare-ups in my neck, I came back to Nigeria, of course, with my drugs, even though they were ineffective in giving me the needed relief. Earlier, the doctors were contemplating on surgical option and later advised on non-steroidals as a fair option. I have been going through the catalogue of people I know in the US, who underwent spine surgery. The story has been disappointing. However, two weeks of treatment by the physiotherapist in Port Harcourt, the numbness and tingling sensation abated drastically. By the end of February 2018, approximately four weeks, my neck knew no pain again, normal sensation returned to my left hand.
“I am quite grateful to my sister and the management of Omega Physiotherapy Clinic. I think the young man needs to be encouraged,”
That was Alfred Oghene, 64 years, who had chronic neck pain (cervical spondylosis) and was effectively treated by the columnist to practically demonstrate his expertise in handling back pain problems.
“A customer came to my shop and observed how difficult it was for me to stand from my chair and attend to her. She pitied me. I apologised for the delay in attending to her. I told her I had this terrible waist pain that disturbs my sleep and would not allow me stand quickly and would not allow me to do what I am suppose to do. She spoke to me about one Omega Physiotherapy & Back Pain Care Clinic, in Owerri and gave me a pamphlet on back pain she brought out from her handbag. Armed with that pamphlet, I sought for the Omega Physiotherapy & Back Pain Care Clinic in Owerri. I got treated for three weeks. My body that was bent to one side, which the doctors called scoliosis, straightened. My frequent urination, not that I had diabetes, became normalised. Indeed, I am so happy. I did not know such a place exist in Owerri.”
To be candid, knowledge about unpleasant changes in the back is important to the sufferers of disturbing back pain. In my practice, questions repeatedly asked by patients during physiotherapy treatment revealed the helplessness with which they regard their back pain. The questions also revealed the extent of the patient’s need for enlightenment, an understanding of the contest of the problem and a need to participate actively in regaining heath and in completely resuming productive lives. This quest gave birth to my brainchild (Back Pain Care Foundation). The Back Pain Care Foundation is a charity organisation, registered with Corporate Affairs Commission, Abuja with its mission to embark on regular save-the-back campaigns to provide information and help to sufferers of common back pain and to teach people to use their bodies sensibly and thus reduce the incidence of back pain. The foundation is willing to partner organised bodies (e.g. churches, mosques, government ministries, corporate organisations, and pep talks to companies on common back pain.
It could also partner NGOs or the political class as a democracy dividend or as a social responsibility to their grass root communities. The foundation is unique in that we not only talk or write about common back pain symptoms. We practically demonstrate our expertise on this common health challenge through our free intervention treatment programmes.