STOP Back Pain!
Kiss Your Back, Neck and Sciatic Nerve Pain Goodbye!
You Don’t Have to Live with Chronic Back Pain—
There Are Many Options for You!
By Kathi Casey, ERYT, CPI
Smashwords Edition Copyright © 2011 by Kathi Casey
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Cover Design by: Killer Covers
Edited by Nancy Peske
Member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors
This book is informational and not intended nor should it be regarded as medical advice. Please consult your physician before beginning any exercise regimen. The author, designer, publisher and distributor expressly disclaim responsibility for any adverse effects arising from the use or application of the information contained in this book.
Contents
Introduction: Me and My Back Pain
Chapter 1: Causes of Back, Neck and Sciatic Nerve Pain
Chapter 2: Symptoms You Wouldn’t Wish on Your Worst Enemy
Chapter 3: Types of Treatments
Chapter 4: Pain Creams, Patches, Heating Pads, Oh My!
Chapter 5: The East West Connection
Chapter 6: Stress and Your Back or Neck Pain
Chapter 7: Why Muscle Relaxation Is the Key to Relief
Chapter 8: The Top Seven Stretching Exercises
Chapter 9: Seven Exercises to Strengthen Your Core Body
Chapter 10: Easy Lifestyle Changes for Today and the Rest of Your Life
Acknowledgments
This book is dedicated to all of my teachers and mentors. You have inspired and encouraged me and helped me to fill my toolbox with the many natural tools that I now use to help people feel better and live healthier lives. There is no greater gift than caring, loving teachers, and I am grateful to have met each and every one of you.
I am eternally grateful
to my children and siblings, who have encouraged and supported me
through good times and bad. To “Guru Tim,” for always knowing the
right thing to say at just the right time; to Mary, for your unique
way of pulling the blocks out of me and getting me back on track; to
Joe, for inspiring us all through living your dream since childhood;
to Pat, whose courage and determination in the face of cancer is most
likely another book
Mick and Loretta, you are joy and beauty beyond words.
My dear friend Ned Moore, you have provided a shoulder to cry on, groceries when I was struggling, brilliant marketing ideas, champagne to celebrate each milestone along the way and more patience than I thought possible for any one human being—thank you for being you!
Testimonials
“Your body is naturally designed to heal, regenerate, and be whole. Regardless of how long you’ve suffered or how many ways you’ve attempted to “make the pain go away,” this book is your stepping stone to changing your life! If you are a person who is currently experiencing back pain or are looking for a way to maintain optimal health, then you’ve grabbed the right book. Kathi Casey has synthesized and integrated a practical and fun approach for understanding and transforming back pain. I highly recommend this book!”
With Infinite Love and Gratitude,
Dr. Darren R. Weissman
Developer of The LifeLine Technique®
847-714-0209
www.drdarrenweissman.com
"Every symptom is a gift in strange wrapping paper."
"I have been to physiotherapy and I have been given all sorts of exercises to try but nothing has ever worked and I just gave up. When I received your email, I thought "why bother, it's just going to be like all the rest" but then something (maybe my guardian angel?!!?!) made me click on the link. You don't know how glad I was when I followed your instructions. The exercise that made the biggest impact was the one lying on your back with your legs on the couch. For the few minutes that I lay like that, there was hardly any pain and as I sit here now typing this message, I feel lighter and a lot more hopeful."
Thea Barendse – South Africa
"I can't tell you how good it feels not to have any leg pain after a year and a half! There aren't words to describe how grateful I am for Kathi's help."
Diann Garner – Solomons Island, MD.
Introduction
Me and My Back Pain
“Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere.”
—Chinese proverb
It was a dark and stormy night… No, that’s not how this started, but I always wanted to start a book that way. Hope I made you smile because that will start us off on the right foot. Laughter truly is the best medicine!
My story of back pain began one day about ten years ago when I was in my late forties. I walked into the foyer of my childhood home and looked at my reflection in our enormous wall mirror—it’s ten feet wide by eight feet high. I mean, I really looked at the reflection staring back at me—such a huge mirror reflects back your entire reflection—and I did not like what I saw. The person in the mirror was out-of-shape, overweight, stressed-out and had just “thrown her back out” yet again. What had happened to me? Where did that adventurous, joyful, “outside the box” thinker, who believed anything was possible, go? And who was this crippled old lady in the mirror? Hmmmm…
This moment started a process of looking within that I suppose most of us undergo when we reach a certain age. Intellectually, I knew that the choices I’d made that had brought me to this point were due to patterns and habits that could be changed, but change seemed a daunting task. I could create new habits and make better choices beginning right now, but where would I start?
My first new choice was to sign up for a yoga class offered through the wellness center at my local hospital. That decision changed my life forever. My teacher and mentor, Mary Ellen Steveling, so inspired me that a few months later, I made another big change. I sold the bed-and-breakfast I had owned and operated singlehandedly for two years. At the same time, I resigned from the high stress, part-time job I’d been doing for the last three years: managing a couple of multimillion dollar government contracts for a firm in Washington, D.C. Then, I packed my bags and stepped off to train to become a yoga teacher.
Total immersion is a wonderful way to transform old habits! During my training, I lost about eight pounds and most of my back pain and gained a whole new outlook on life. I also made new friends who were treading the same path toward better health and wellness. It’s much easier to walk that new path when someone else is walking beside you, sharing your journey. I later came to realize that one of the best parts of my yoga training was my involvement with my fellow students. In my class of 30, there were people of all cultures, sizes and ages. We learned how to modify and replace certain exercises with alternatives so that everyone could participate, and that was, as the TV commercial states, “priceless.”
When my training was finished, I started teaching a couple of classes a week at the hospital wellness center. Before you could say, “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” my wonderful mentor decided that it would be great if the hospital could offer Pilates classes as well. Off I went to become trained as a Pilates instructor. I love Pilates. As a young girl, I had danced and was pretty good at it. I discovered that Joseph Pilates began his teaching in New York by helping dancers from the New York City Ballet. There was even an old 8mm film of him as a young man teaching dancers at a Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. I especially loved watching that film since I grew up in the Berkshires and had received a scholarship to summer training at Jacob’s Pillow when I was 12!
The Pilates training I received at The Body College in Washington, D.C., was fabulous. However, as part of the certification process, I also needed to complete 20 classes with a certified instructor, and that was very different from my yoga training. These classes were taught by a young woman in her early twenties who had never been pregnant, had no idea what a hot flash was, and who insisted that when you do an abdominal crunch, you should be able to pull your belly in—it should not pooch out (like mine did). Well, since that time, I’ve seen many other young women teaching Pilates who believe the same thing (give them about 20 years and see if they don’t change their tune…). I’ve also met lots of older women who think they can’t do Pilates because it’s too difficult, or it’s their daughter’s exercise program, not theirs. I’m happy to tell you that those who have come to my classes have lost inches, reduced their pain, and gained confidence, flexibility and, in some cases, bone mass. They are absolutely able to do the exercises with my modifications, and they now love Pilates! Everything is possible if you believe!
Before long, I was teaching more and more classes a week and becoming more and more fit. For a couple of years, I taught 12 classes a week of either yoga or Pilates! All the while, I continued my learning and earned certificates in somatics, acu-yoga (which uses acupressure in combination with yoga poses), healing touch, ancient ayurvedic physical healing—and the list goes on. I absolutely love my new career. I have no back pain, have lowered my blood pressure to normal so that I no longer need medication, and am healthier and more fit now than I was at age 20. I’m passionate about helping others achieve similar results.
In my classes, I always gave so much information about exercises that specifically help alleviate pain in the neck, hips and back, etc., that eventually, students began to come in early or stay late to ask what they could do for their hip or back pain, neck and shoulder pain, leg pain, etc. I would give them the exercises that I knew firsthand would help, and the next week they would tell everyone in the class how great they felt. My reputation grew and grew.
Now that I’d found my adventurous, creative thinking inner self, I realized thatthis was my purpose in life: Teaching others how to use simple exercises and techniques that make it possible to live pain free again! My AHA! moment arrived with the recognition of my gift for knowing the right relaxation technique or the perfect exercise to help someone end pain. I’m happiest when sharing this information with others.
I knew I needed to get the word out to as many people as possible, so I developed my own program called Get Rid of Sciatic Pain for Good! I first presented this program as a workshop, and it was very successful, so I recorded a video demonstrating the three best exercises and began marketing that DVD on Amazon and other places. It soon became my best-selling product and still is to this day.
I love to spread the word about healing chronic back pain, because I know how much this information is needed. If you think about it, I’m sure you know at least a couple of people who often complain about their sore backs, or who have missed work due to back pain, or who take prescription drugs to relieve their pain. I’ll bet everyone reading this book right now has felt nagging back or neck pain at some point!
It never ceases to amaze me how many of us have back issues! According to the American Chiropractic Association, 70 to 85 percent of Americans suffer from back pain at some time in their lives, and as we age, back pain becomes increasingly likely. Wow!
In fact, here are a few more interesting facts about back pain from The American Chiropractic Association:
Low back pain is the fifth most common reason for all physician visits in the United States.1
Back pain is the most frequent cause of activity limitation in people younger than 45 years old.3
Approximately one quarter of U.S. adults reported having low back pain lasting at least one whole day in the past three months2, and 7.6 percent reported at least one episode of severe acute low back pain within a one-year period.4
One-half of all working Americans admit to having back pain symptoms each year.5
Approximately 2 percent of the U.S. work force is compensated for back injuries each year.6
Americans spend at least $50 billion per year on back pain—and that’s just for the more easily identified costs.7
Many chronic back pain sufferers believe that invasive surgery is their only option, or that they are out of options and just have to learn to live with the pain. This book is all about the many therapies and techniques that are available all over the world today to heal your back pain. No one should have to live with chronic pain.
Doctors who practice traditional Western medicine are trained to treat a physical symptom. They believe that if you have a backache, you need some pain medication and ice. If the pain worsens, they take your blood pressure, maybe draw some blood and run tests, or weigh you, but their assessment usually does not include looking at the way you walk or how you are sitting in the chair in front of them. They rarely ask about the stress in your life.