My Back Pain Story

My back pain story starts with a lower back injury, which led to repetitive strain injury. After physiotherapy and osteopathy I learned to use self help to maintain and improve my health. The Alexander Technique was my introduction to learning to take care of myself better .

Twisted Pelvis (1990)

Aged 23, I fell down some stone steps and landed on the base of my spine. I had a very stiff neck for two days or so, which then gradually disappeared.

Two weeks later, out for a walk in the Yorkshire Dales, I tried to lift a friend over a muddy puddle (WITHOUT her permission!) She struggled, and there was a brief, sharp pain in my lower back. I forget whether I dropped her in the puddle or just beyond it. We continued our walk and returned home. Later that evening my back pain had got so bad that I couldn't do anything except lie down. I stayed in while my friend went out.

A couple of days later, after a painful 200-mile drive, I got an appointment with an osteopath. After a few cracks, clicks and crunches, some quite uncomfortable, I was much more mobile, but very sore. The osteopath told me I had a twisted pelvis. She also said that if I had come after I had fallen down those steps, the second injury would probably not have happened. I had hardly been aware that the first "injury" (the stiff neck) had been an injury. My pelvis kept drifting "out" again, my back pain kept coming back. I had to keep having more osteopathy. "To keep yourself out of trouble, go and learn the Alexander Technique," said the osteopath. There followed several years of more or less continuous low back pain, undoubtedly not helped by a relatively sedentary career in IT. I couldn't run for two years.

Repetitive Strain Injury (1992)

Shortly after starting work for a computer magazine, and under considerable stress, I began to get a very stiff neck. Without warning, my fingers started missing keys on the keyboard, and on the phone keypad. I found myself typing and retyping everything. A few hours later, pressing the keys started getting painful.

Next morning, it was so painful I had to stop working. It was almost physically impossible to dial an 8-digit number. I decided to leave work and drive home. After driving for 200 yards, I realised that I had to stop. My hands hurt too much to continue. I couldn't handle the steering wheel, or deal with vibration from the gear stick. My hands were very painful from the vibration.

The first GP (medical person) I saw gave me painkillers and told me it was just a temporary response to a stressful new job. "Push through it," he said. I decided not to take his advice. The second GP handled my arm like a piece of chicken, then said I had "recurrent strain injury" and referred me to a more knowledgeable colleague. I didn't like my arm being handled like a piece of chicken, and discovered later when I had Alexander lessons why the GP's handling of my arm felt so bad: she was separating my arm from the rest of my body.

I'd had enough of GPs for the time being, so I went to a private physiotherapist (physical therapist) who came recommended by other members of my family. The physiotherapist spent more than an hour testing me to find out which movements hurt. I was very surprised when, at the end of this, he told me there was nothing wrong with my hands or fingers.

"It's your neck", he said, and proved it by treating my neck for a few minutes with short, strong pulses with his thumb. My hands stopped hurting. I walked out of his consulting room 4 sessions later with hands that worked, and mostly didn't hurt.

"Improve your upper body strength, and go and learn the Alexander Technique," said the physiotherapist.

My Mother (1992)

"How's you back?" said my mother a few months later.

"Awful," I said.

"I've been reading an interesting book about the Alexander Technique," my mother continued. "Why don't you try it?"

The Writing on the Wall (1996)

After several more years working in IT, my hands were getting gradually worse again. I started using voice recognition software (DragonDictate), changed my mouse, keyboard and chair, monitored my work-breaks carefully, even stood up to work at the computer for six months. My hand pain got worse, and so did my voice, which began to get tight and strained from dictating. I lost my voice easily. I was having a lot of trouble sleeping, and waking up uncomfortable all over. My back was hurting much as it usually did. No, it was getting worse so slowly I hardly noticed. Sex hurt. I could hardly imagine a job I'd be able to do full-time. It was getting harder and harder to smile, or to be good company.

I decided to try the Alexander Technique.

The Alexander Technique (1996)

I had a series of about 10 lessons that first time. I remember coming out of the first lesson thinking of arrows pointing out of the top of my head, the base of my spine and forwards from my knees. The teacher had moved me gently, first on a table, lying down, then sitting and standing. It felt like we'd done almost nothing.

When I walked out of the room, my body felt heavy and solid, very unfamiliar. I was buzzing all over. I wasn't sure I felt better. I didn't know what to make of this new feeling.

The Alexander teacher said later that every time I came for a lesson, she spent much of it trying to calm my nervous system down before she could teach me anything. My whole body was singing with tension and confusion.

The Alexander Technique is about stopping, thinking, and reasoning. We don't usually think about applying reason to something as simple as "reaching for the mouse", but there's no reason why we shouldn't. It's just as valid a thing to think about as the Middle-East, Chomskyan Linguistics, football or object-oriented programming. In fact, you could argue that it's a much more important thing to think about than any of those...

At the end of 10 lessons there was some good improvement, but no cure for my RSI or my back pain. I had been warned not to expect a cure. But I was interested. There was something weirdly appealing about the chair being the answer to everything. Alexander himself had once called the chair "the most abominable invention of the human race." If the Technique was so good for looking after myself, why did I spend all my time in lessons using one of these monstrosities??!

Travelling (1996)

I left my job, cashed my savings and donned a rucksack for almost two years of cheap, rough travel. I'd decided to write a travel book. One of the odd things I'd noticed was that my back felt much better after carrying a heavy rucksack (and so did my hands.)

I walked the Coast to Coast, 200 miles, with a heavy pack, and got some RSI-like pains in my feet towards the end. They took months to clear up.

I went to Hungary, Romania, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Iran. I spent my 30th birthday happily among strangers in Budapest.

In Iran, my new friend Saman's family had an L-shaped sitting room. In the farthest, unused corner of the L was a pile of western-style hospital foyer chairs, very trendy in middle-class Iranian households. "We don't use them any more. We don't like them," said Saman's mother.

When we were in the sitting room, we all sat on the floor. To eat, we laid a mat on the floor and sat round it. My hands were considerably improved.

Writing (1998)

I was home, and it was time to type it all up, all the hundreds of pages of notes, and turn it into a book. My hands felt good, my back felt reasonable. Two months' typing later, the painful hands were back, and so was the bad back. I thought I'd cracked it. But it looked like my hands would stop me being a writer as well as a computing professional.

Alexander Technique (1999)

I began to have more Alexander Technique lessons, with a different teacher.

"This isn't just about chairs, and sitting, is it?" I remember asking. A penny was trying to drop. He kept asking me to let my neck be free, and let my back lengthen and widen. That and touching me gently as he spoke, on the neck and back. As he touched my back, it did lengthen and widen, all by itself. I could feel my spine getting longer, and my shoulder blades feeling softer and more moveable.

"How would you walk into a room full of people, feeling nervous, using the Alexander Technique?" this teacher said.

"I'd stop, let my neck be free, let my head go forward and up, let my back lengthen and widen..." "Yes. How would you reach for your mouse without it hurting so much?"

"I'd stop, let my neck be free, let my head go forward and up, let my back lengthen and widen..."

"Yes. How would you jump off a cataract with a thick cable round your neck, using the Alexander Technique?"

"..."

"Yes! Well stopped! How would you pick up that piece of paper..."

"I'd let my neck be free..."

"Yes. Don't forget to Stop first. You're getting it. How would you kiss your future wife, let's say just before proposing to her?"

"I'd stop, let my neck..."

"Yes. How would you shake hands with your interviewer at the beginning of an interview for a job you really wanted?"

"I'd s..."

"Yes. Why do we use a chair?"

"I don't know. Because we sit and stand a lot?"

Grant, my teacher, said: "Because it's the hardest thing. Because chairs are the most abominable invention of the human race. Proposing to your girlfriend is for wimps." My back seemed better. My hands were taking their time. But for some reason I was hooked.

The Penny Begins to Drop

It was slowly dawning on me that I needed a profession that did me good, rather than injuring me. During this lesson with Grant, something very beautiful had happened. I'd realised something important. I hadn't the foggiest idea what it was. I decided to train to be an Alexander Technique teacher to find out.

After two terms of Alexander teacher training (the training takes three years) my painful hands had gone, and so had my bad back. I occasionally have mild symptoms if I forget to take care of myself, but not often.

I'm still learning what Grant was teaching me in that lesson. You can write down what the Alexander Technique is about in half a page, but you can go on learning it for the rest of your life...thanks Grant!

Grant Ragsdale's website is here.