Did I Mention I Have A Bad Back?
The Age
Tuesday April 15, 2003
The cure for back ache used to be a good lie down; now it's a rallying call for amateur shrinks and physios.
If your dinner party is ailing and the main course has not yet been served, a guaranteed way to stimulate conversation is to mention your painful back. Simply put your hand somewhere about the region of the third vertebra, wince slightly, and before you know it everyone will be contributing.
``Sore back, eh?"
The amateur psychologists are usually first. Their concern is about the deeper meaning of your complaint. Their eyes search soulfully in yours for clues. ``What are you carrying that you shouldn't be carrying? Maybe there is something you need to put down?"
They imply not that you are carrying a physical load, but rather that an invisible, but nevertheless real, psychological accumulation is dangling somewhere from your body.
Others in this mind/body school of thought advise that psychological baggage can be quite simply removed by standing up straight, making direct eye contact and speaking out firmly about your suppressed anger.
``Thoughts create emotions and emotions create pain. Be assertive," they instruct. ``Is it your boss who is troubling you?"
The physical exercise group chimes in then. They talk of muscles, lactic acid and tendons that require daily stretching. Members of this group used to have sore backs, but not now.
They move chairs back from the table to throw themselves on the carpet and demonstrate exercises specifically for the lumbar region. Your dining room becomes a Jane Fonda workout filled with contortionist yogis.
Some squat, elbows balanced on the arms of your leather couch, pushing their bodies up and down and calling: ``Look, this is how you do it." The previously sleeping cat flees the room.
One person in the first stage of catatonia stands with twisted spine and outstretched arms.
This group, when it returns to the dining-room table, is very fond of phrases such as ``back management" and ``personal responsibility".
Then, there are those who know a Marvellous Person who can help you. This Marvellous Person could be an osteopath or a chiropractor, they are uncertain about the exact name. Whatever, they work with bones.
If you live in Brunswick this bone expert is in Frankston; if you live in Burwood he or she is in Melton. Never mind that you cannot swing your legs into the car without excruciating pain, let alone press the accelerator without your sciatic nerve screaming. This Marvellous Person is the only one who can fix you. Your adviser, who does not have this Marvellous Person's card on them at the moment, will ring you as soon as they get home.
The next day, just after you have removed the cat from the couch, gingerly settled on the edge and eased carefully back to a supported, almost pain-free position, the telephone rings.
``Hi! It's Barry. I've got an old card here of this Marvellous Person but I think he moved into new rooms about six months ago. You could ring directory services, they're sure to know."
Another collection of alternative practitioners is also highly recommended. They practise healing techniques with names such as crystal magnet therapy and shamanic energy return. Some never lay a hand on you; some do it by telephone. All have healed a friend's injured back.
Very few people recommend general practitioners, which must mean they have been tried, and found wanting, or had not been tried recently.
Old doctors reminisce at medical conferences: ``Remember that complaint, the painful back. Used to see all the time. Never hear of it now. Gone the way of smallpox."
Your guests also urge you to read books. Depending on whether people belong to the spiritual healing group or the muscle group you soon have 15 titles with names such as Love Your Back Now and Back Stretches for Winners to order at your local bookstore.
After the first bout of lively conversation quietens, and more wine is passed around, other remedies emerge. A melancholic air accompanies this stage as people, minds and bodies disturbed by memories of past pain and suffering, attempt to describe their experience.
Stories emerge of people having to roll out of bed, and crawl on hands and knees to the toilet. Words such as soft- tissue injury, bulging discs, torn ligaments, fibrositis and lumbago are mentioned in hushed tones.
Family histories take over. Tales are told of great-grandfathers, who injured their backs mustering sheep in the rain or while riding to the nearest general store to get cough mixture to save the baby, being healed with treatments administered by pioneer great-grandmothers.
These treatments involve standing for several hours at the stove and sink, boiling and straining some herb that once grew wild, but which can now be bought from your local garden nursery for several dollars.
This opens up discussion about whether heat or cold should be applied first. Some weekend sportspeople are enthusiastic about using frozen peas, quoting the first-aid mantra - Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation.
Someone else points out that this is for hamstrings. About this time it is probably sensible to put a cork in the wine bottle.
The language we use when talking about backs is revealing. Our family favours ``bad back", as though our spinal columns have failed some moral test and a return to goodness should be imminent. Others prefer the term ``my back's gone" suggesting a rather flighty sort of vertebra prone to late evenings and nightclubs.
Our ancestors, not the valiant great-grandparents, but further back, are also in for a certain amount of blame. The intellectuals at the dinner party, confident with the latest evolutionary theory, point out that the hairy creatures that once swung in some primeval jungle walked on all fours without a back twinge.
Why it is that one day they decided to stand, hence providing stimulating dinner party conversation, the intellectuals are not sure. However, someone is researching it now.
A bad back used to be an opportunity to lie down. Anxious spouses and tiptoe-ing children brought cups of tea. A hot water bottle was filled while you occasionally cursed and cried when you turned. You could even read a few of those recommended books.
But, in this self-help era, nothing is more calculated to have you earmarked as a psychological weakling, passive malingerer, lazy sod, dodger, out to defraud Medicare, a refusenik throwback.
After everyone leaves I reach quietly for the aspirin, decide to check out my back with my general practitioner, then try that osteopath at the end of my street.
Norah Dempster is a Melbourne writer.
© 2003 The Age