In 1994 I had my most personal experience with chronic pain. It started in late September of that year with a simple and often repeated movement. That of lifting a small rowboat. Actually the magic moment happened after I had put the boat down and generated an adventure in pain that became my motivator for teaching Mindbody Training methods to people dealing with similar issues.

I was at our family cottage and we were closing it for the season. This involves putting all the lawn furniture, canoes etc. into the cottage and boarding up all the windows. The rowboat in question did not need to go into the cottage, but rather was hidden behind it and chained to a tree. So it was a simple matter of moving the boat from the shore to the tree, a very short distance. In retrospect, I now see that the sequence of events which followed were started by my adopting an attitude of ease with respect to moving the boat since the distance was so short. My attention was not fully on the task since I assumed it to be an easy one.

My brother picked up one end of the boat and I picked up the other. We carried it the few paces needed and bent to put it down. I released it and stood up. There was no weight being lifted at this moment, which contributed to the already easy attitude I had taken. So I straightened up without using my legs. I simply bent upright. This is when it happened. A simple “slipping” sensation in the lower left side of my back, just above the hip. There was no pain, no crack or snap, no problem other than it felt strange. Like something had slipped out of place that I couldn’t identify.

It wasn’t painful and I continued with the tasks to close the cottage. At the end of the day, I drove back to Toronto which is about 3.5hrs depending on the traffic. Upon arriving home, the situation took a turn and it became clear that something was very wrong. I got out of the car stepped forward onto my my left leg and it collapsed. I dropped to the ground with great surprise, and as yet, no pain. But the leg had gone numb and I had to drag myself to my feet using the open car door. After a few minutes I found the leg was getting some sensation back and I could put some weight on it. I limped to the garage, opened it and pulled the car in.

I could feel what is best described as a “numb tightness” in my lower back just above the left buttock. Also, there was an odd stiffening feeling in the back of the left leg. So I lay on an ice pack for a while, for no other reason that it seemed like a good idea to do something. After about 30 minutes I removed the ice pack and now had a numb, cold, tightness at this spot in the lower back. There was nothing else to do but go to bed.

In the following days, the numbness eased but the feeling in the back and back of the left leg became that of pain that was sometimes dull, other times sharp depending on how I moved. But what was becoming a bit of a concern was that the spot in the back would become painful in certain sitting and standing positions, so I could not stay in any one position for too long. Sitting in a chair was particularly difficult as it seemed to compress this area in the back and I would have to shift every few minutes. At that time, I worked a desk job so sitting was a huge part of my day.

Over the weeks that followed, the situation became worse. The lower back and left leg started to hurt consistently. The pain had a component of heat to it in that I felt like my lower back was being stabbed with a hot knife. I continued using the ice pack when possible as this provided some relief. Or perhaps it froze the area so I couldn’t feel the pain as much. As mentioned above, sitting for any prolonged period was very difficult and became worse every day. It got to the point that I had to find a way to sit on my desk chair with the left buttock pushed upwards. I accomplished this by placing a tennis ball on the chair and angling my body on it so the tissue on the left buttock would be compressed upwards. This provided enough temporary relief from the pain that I could better focus on my job. But every 30 minutes or so, I had to get out of the chair to relieve the compression in that left buttock as it would itself become quite sore. It was like sitting on stone.

Walking was another problem. By now, the pain was traveling down the back of the left leg and getting more and more severe. When I walked, the swing of the leg would pull on the pain point in the lower back. If I was walking quickly or took a longer stride, I would wince in pain. So I had to slow down and reduce the length of my stride so as not pull on the lower back. This was really difficult when walking beside someone such as my wife, as I would constantly have to slow down. While walking wasn’t as painful as sitting, it was sometimes the most frustrating since I walked a lot. Going to a movie was another trial. Imagine sitting in a theatre seat, where I could not place the tennis ball. It would fall off the seat the moment I took the pressure off. So I would spend the entire duration of the movie squirming around in that seat, trying to find a reasonably comfortable position.

The only time I experienced some measure of comfort was while lying down. So those evenings on the couch were a blessed relief from the pain. Yet, even then, certain positions were more awkward than others and even when I found one that was good, the pain would slowly creep in and I had to move.

At the time all this occurred I was learning what are known as internal martial arts. Specifically the Chinese arts known as Tai Chi Chuan, Baguazhang, and Qigong. I won’t get into what all these entailed here but suffice to say that since these were forms of exercise, and in the case of Qigong, some really elaborate mind-body training, I thought they would heal my back injury quickly. No such luck! I attended my regular classes and did my best to keep up with everyone else. I suffered through some excruciating sessions in which I was close to tears. Not so much because of the pain, but because of the frustration at becoming more and more limited in my movements. I tolerated this situation for about 3 months and finally called it quits. The idea of self-healing was abandoned and I embarked on the journey through the alternative health care industry.

To backtrack a bit, I did consult my doctor in the first couple of weeks after the injury. He took x-rays and indicated there was nothing wrong with the skeleton so we would have to think in terms of tissue damage. He indicated that pain killers could be prescribed, but that this would only mask the pain and not heal it. My thinking was that I wanted to feel what was happening so I wouldn’t run the risk of making it worse by moving the wrong way and not having a pain to guide me. He was a good doctor and very respectful of my wished so simply said to come back when I had had enough of the pain. He was the first to use the term sciatica in reference to the pain traveling down the back of the leg, but also indicated that this was unlikely since the pain stopped at the back of the knee. Typically, sciatic pain travels to the foot. In any event, it seemed to me that I wasn’t going to get much help from my doctor and I classified this as not getting help from western medicine. Admittedly this is something of a presumptive leap, but that is how I thought of it at the time.

So, getting back to the alternative health care approach, I did have something of a bias towards the eastern approaches to health since I had been engaged in eastern martial arts and meditation for many years. In fact, closing the door on western medicine seemed entirely natural too me as my opinion at that time was that methods like naturopathy, chiropractic, Chinese Medicine and Aryuvedic medicine were only different ways of accessing healing and of equal, if not greater value than the western scientific approach. It was time to find a healer.

I thought that a combination of chiropractic and acupuncture was a good place to start. So I found a clinic that offered these disciplines together and made an appointment. I have chosen not to name the health practitioners I encountered. I do not want to either promote or refute these people. The doctor was Chinese, which gave me a feeling of this being authentic, and he spoke excellent English. We’ll call him Dr. 1. The first thing he suggested was to get x-rays done so he could see what was happening. This also filled me with confidence since getting x-rays was a good scientific approach. I know, I know, I just finished saying that the western view was being abandoned in favour of eastern tradition. Nonetheless, I felt good that he was using technology to assist his diagnosis. I, like many, have had confused and incomplete thinking about things like this.

The x-ray results were interesting. More specifically, what he said about them was interesting. He said my sacroiliac joint (see pic) was misaligned and that this was causing the pressure on the sciatic nerve. The way to handle this was to have regular chiropractic adjustments to the hips along with acupuncture treatments to speed the healing of the tissues. And he was going to give me these for only $35 per session. I was pretty happy with this until he further stated that I would need to come 3 times a week at the beginning. This frequency would taper off as the hip stabilized and the pain reduced. Frankly, all I cared about at the time was being free of this pain. So I agreed to get started.

The treatments consisted of 3 components. First, I lay on my side in a version of the fetal position. Dr. 1 positioned his hands in such a way as to move my pelvis and torso in opposite directions. He did this quite suddenly and there was a loud cracking sound along with the feeling of the bones being shifted. There was no pain, and it was somehow satisfying that there was such a tangible sound and sensation. I felt like something was happening and this is what anyone in chronic pain wants, next to the pain vanishing of course. The feeling that something was being done gave me the sense of progress. Next I would lie, face down on a table with my face held in a padded support ring. Dr. 1 checked to see if my legs were of equal length indicating that this was a measure of the success of the hip/torso adjustment. I was told that the adjustment was designed to correct the sacroiliac positioning. Now the treatment turned to acupuncture, as this was needed to heal the tissue, especially the inflamed sciatic nerve. It was summer so I was there in shorts. This made it easier to place the needles. Dr. 1 placed several acupuncture needles in various positions on my back and down the left leg. He then attache clips to four of the needles, two on my back near the injury site, and two on my leg. The clips were connected to wires which were connected to an electronic unit that emitted a mild electrical current. He set this current to run for about 20 minutes and left the room. This was the most interesting and stimulating part of the treatment. The current caused certain muscles in my leg to contract slightly and the leg reflexively hopped up from the table about an inch. I felt like a frog in a high school biology class. It was not unpleasant, and it certainly added to that feeling that something was being done about my pain.

These treatments were administered 3 time a week for several weeks. At first I was delighted with the results. The pain in my back and leg would be decidedly less after the treatment. However, this would only last about a day or 2 before the pain would come back. Dr. 1 assured me that this was normal as we were retraining the skeleton to be in a correct position while accelerating the healing of the tissue. It would take time for the bones to maintain the adjustments. This seemed reasonable at first, since I had just started. Also, there were several sessions after which the effect of reduced pain would last several days. But it never quite went away. I kept having to sit on that tennis ball at work and tolerate the constant sharp pain when sitting or standing in certain positions. As the cost of these treatments started to approach $500 I was having second thoughts. I started to think that something about the way he was administering these treatments was inappropriate for my situation. I asked him about it, and he was always honest and informative. He said that it was possible I would require these treatments indefinitely since there is no way to predict how long it would take for my skeleton to hold the new position. Each person is, after all, unique. So now I was facing a possible endless stream of payments for something that was only giving me relief for a few days. Something was wrong.

Around this time I was told about another approach to chiropractic known as the Activator method. This involved a small device comprised of a rubber striker about the size of one’s thumb which was mounted on a spring loaded device. This could be applied to very specific bones that were incorrectly aligned. This sounded interesting to me as the pain was coming from a very definite point on my lower back. Also, the treatments were only $20 so it seemed like a good idea to me. In addition, I was wondering more and more about the use of electrical current on those acupuncture needles. Clearly this was not traditional acupuncture and I started to wonder if this was a misuse of traditional knowledge and that this was why it was not working. The desire for relief from chronic pain creates a situation where a failing treatment is considered to be incorrectly applied rather than admit it simply wasn’t working. So with all these rationalizations fully developed, I said goodbye to Treatment and No. 1 and moved on to No. 2.

The Activator treatments were simplicity itself. I went (yes, again for 3 sessions a week) and lay on the table. Dr. 2 used the Activator on the bones at and around the pain site. No frog on the table this time, and no sudden loud cracking of the hip. Just this simple, soft tap that I was told would pop the hip into its correct position. As for the tissue damage, I was told that the body would heal itself more easily now that the hip had been gently corrected. The implication was that the violent cracking administered by the previous chiropractor was causing more tissue problems. I, of course, believed this as it made sense since it fit with the fact that I was not improving despite months of treatment.

I was a little suspicious of the Activator method for no other reason that it was so gentle. I was not getting that satisfaction of something definitive happening as was the case with the hip crack. Nevertheless, I continued with this process in the hope that it would relieve me from the pain. The enjoyment of life was almost gone as there was almost nothing I could do that did not cause pain. So I preferred to do as little as possible. The treatment did seem to have an effect since the pain would be noticeably decreased for several days after treatment. We soon reduced the visit to twice weekly and this was definite progress. But once again, the expense started to add up with no end in sight. I asked about this and was told, once again, that the time to become pain free could not be determined and that we would have to simply keep going to see how it develops. I started to have those familiar doubts about the effectiveness of this treatment, only this time it was because treatment was so gentle. What if it just wasn’t enough to move the hip back into its proper position so it would stay there? And what about the tissue? Surely something should be done to assist the body in healing since it was being manipulated regularly. I determined that the problem was that acupuncture was still needed, but it should be done someone who practiced the real Traditional Chinese Medicine, not a westernized derivative. So it was time to find someone like this, preferable one who was Chinese.

It was not difficult to find someone. You may recall that I had been practicing Chinese internal arts of Bagua, Tai Chi and Chi Kung. So I asked my former classmates for a recommendation and obtained one very quickly, Dr. 3. She was a traditional practitioner working out of her home and only took people by referral. This sounded good to me as it was not someone accepting people off the street. It somehow struck me as more authentic. I have no idea why I would think that, but it gave me confidence in her. I made my appointment and off I went. This was very interesting as I was given a very traditional treatment. Dr. 3 was not pleased that I had undergone all those chiropractic treatment as it “disrupted the energy flow with which her treatments work.” I assured her that I had stopped the chiropractic adjustments and had come to her for “real” traditional healing. She was quite gracious about this and proceeded to start the treatment. This consisted of not only inserting acupuncture needled, lots of them, but also attaching a substance to the ends of certain needles and lighting it up to slowly burn. I was told this was called moxibustion and was designed to draw the negative energy out of the body while the placement of the needles encouraged a positive flow that would enhance healing. Then, and this was the best part, she removed the needles and placed glass bottles face down on specific locations on my back. As the bottles were placed, the air was drawn out of them so they would be held in place by the suction. This was a most interesting series of treatments and I felt like I had found a viable path towards becoming pain free. Oh yes, the treatments were $35 each and I needed to have them 3 times a week at first, to be reduced as my pain improved. This was a familiar message, but I had to accept that this was the case. After all, she was the expert.

Do I even need to tell what happened in the weeks that followed? You guessed it. The pain would subside briefly only to return in time for the next treatment. This was by now a very familiar pattern, but I kept it up for a few months so as not to jeopardize any possible benefits of the treatments. After all, this was a bona fide Chinese Medical doctor and was quite confident in her methods. So I persisted. But, as with the previous approaches, my bank account was constantly decreasing and the pain, while not getting worse, was not getting much better.

All this took about year and a half. I finally decided to stop the financial erosion and accept my situation. I was in pain much of the time and nothing had helped. Yes, this was depressing. Yes, I was angry at all the doctors, at myself for being so foolish as to continue as long as I did, at my back and leg for all the aggravation, at the world, universe, God, whatever, for this situation. I was finally accepting the pain and stopped fighting.

In all this time, I had stopped much of my exercises. Before all this happened I was quite active in Tai Chi, Bagua, Chi Kung, meditation etc. and had stopped most of it since many of the movements were too painful. The only practice I kept was meditation and even that was dramatically reduced as I was unable to sit comfortably for long. A number of psychological changes took place at this point, starting with accepting the pain. I stopped struggling and simply managed as best I could in any given situation. What was gone was the idea that I would someday be free of the pain and with it was the frustration of the dealing with it at the moment. In other words, while experiencing the pain say at a movie, while I still had to deal with the immediate discomfort of sitting for 2 hours, I no longer had the frustration of thinking that I shouldn’t be experiencing the pain because I was getting treatment. I no longer was getting treated, so there was nothing to be frustrated about, other than the pain. This is a subtle thing, but in looking back at it, I can see that it helped give me more energy with which to handle the frustration of the pain itself.

I decided that since I was not going to be pain free, I might as well return to my internal arts practices and just do what I could. Sure, some movements were too painful, but many were not and the overall effect of attending classes was good since I was out doing something. So I would stretch to whatever degree I was able, bend as possible, go as fast or slow as I needed in order to participate as fully as possible. At the end of some classes my back and leg would be worse, but at the end of some others they would actually feel better. There were some weeks during which I went to classes every day because the pain was less, and other weeks when it was so bad that I would miss the whole week. But overall, I was feeling emotionally better because I was active again. Also, and this is very important, I no longer had the expectation that I was going to get much better. I fully accepted that pain was my companion and I would just do my best to live as well as possible with it. Interestingly, this attitude created a more relaxed state of mind. The struggle to be pain free was gone so I could devote more time and energy to enjoying what I was able to enjoy. In a sense, I just stopped caring about getting rid of the pain.

It happened one otherwise uneventful week, on a day when nothing in particular was to take place. I woke up early as always and rolled into a sitting position. I would always sit up by rolling first onto my side and then use an arm to push my body into a sitting position. This was because to sit up from lying on my back was excruciatingly painful. So over I rolled, sat up swinging my feet to the floor and stood up. Whenever I stood there would be a moment before the searing pain would occur, first at the injury point in my back and followed immediately by a radiating pain down the leg. So I waited in this moment………nothing happened. There was no pain. I waited a bit longer, thinking that it was merely delayed for some unknown reason. So I stood there, waiting. There was still no pain. It had been 2 1/2 years since the pain began upon putting that rowboat on the ground so the feeling had become a constant companion with which I had to negotiate every movement of my body. This was something completely new……no pain.

I started to walk down the hallway towards the bathroom. Walking itself was always tricky because each swing of the left leg would pull on the injury and be painful. This time it wasn’t. Even standing up and lowering my head to look down was normally painful as this would pull on the muscles above the injury. Not this time. I went downstairs to make coffee. Again, each movement in these simple tasks had become altered by the pain such that I did things differently so as not to aggravate the pain. I would lift an arm and reach out only so far; or bend over to pick something up from the floor by stepping out as wide as possible so the bend at the lower back would be as little as possible. Not this time. I accidentally dropped the coffee filter on the floor and, since the pain was not appearing, I slowly bent at the waist in a way I had not in over 2 years. No pain.

You can imagine the feeling starting to build inside. Lightness, elation, giddiness. I went back upstairs and woke up my wife to proclaim that I seemed to be…..oh man, dare I utter the words….pain free! She, quite sensibly told me to be careful and not suddenly start moving around. I agreed but was dominated by the compulsion to move and move and move! I did move slowly though, testing different angles, bending forward and back, cautiously twisting the torso side to side. In all positions, the situation was the same……no pain. I went to work that day constantly testing this new feeling, or lack of feeling. When I got to my desk chair, there was the tennis ball I had been sitting on for the last 2 years. I picked it up, put it on the shelf and sat down. No pain. I started to work which involved bending forward to move papers on the desk, reach into the in and out trays, reach under the desk to toss something in the waste basket. No pain. In fact I went through the entire day and evening without pain.

The next day was the same. And the next, and the next. All pain free! I ran out of adjectives to describe the elation I was feeling. I was actually experiencing the activities of life without wincing, altering my movements, avoiding some all together. It was amazing. The big question in my mind and probably yours is, of course, what happened? What cured me? This is going to be the disappointing part of the story because I honestly don’t know what, specifically caused the pain to vanish. It disappeared as mysteriously as it appeared. Remember that when the injury occurred it was when I had put the boat down. So there was no weight on my lower back. Something mysteriously slipped in my back and the pain started that same day. Now, I was not undergoing any adjustments to my back, or medications such as muscle relaxers. But something did change in the months leading up to this moment.

What changed was my attitude. I gave up trying to be cured and accepted the pain as part of my life. I have not talked about the emotional toll the entire experience took on me. Suffice it to say that, at times, the anguish and hopelessness was a worse torturer than the pain. The idea that I might spend the rest of my life with this excruciating pain was often overwhelming. The biggest change was the release of that concern. I accepted the pain as a fact to be managed rather than an enemy to fight. Consequently I retuned to regular exercise which, interestingly, involved placing my body in optimal postures while inducing deep relaxation. So I have to wonder if this combination of a vastly improved emotional attitude and optimized body movements with relaxation, somehow set the stage for the body to heal itself. I don’t know.

What I do know is what it is like to live with that kind of long term, seemingly endless pain. It has given me a strong sense of empathy for anyone enduring anything similar. But I also know that it did not help me to suffer through the emotional storms created by wanting the situation to be other than it was. It did not and does not mean that we should give up trying to deal with pain. Remember that I went back to exercising in part to start strengthening those areas that I could move. The difference was the acceptance of the situation as it was, even though it meant the possibility of a lifetime of pain, and then doing what I could to live as well as possible. I don’t know if this change in attitude would work for anyone else, but in terms of the anguish often associated with the difficulties of living with pain, perhaps it couldn’t hurt.