"Stop Whingeing About Your Back"??

"Stop Whingeing!" Has someone said this to you yet? Are you afraid they will?

If you're like me you take pride in not complaining. You just get on with things when the going gets tough. So it's tempting to "push through it" when you first start getting a bit of back pain.

And the problem may disappear. But by ignoring a small problem, you can sometimes be storing up a bigger problem later.

"I fell down some stone steps onto the base of my spine. I got a bit of neckache for a couple of days but thought nothing of it. Two weeks later, I lifted a heavy weight and felt my back go.

"That evening my back started to be really painful. I could hardly move for three days. The osteopath I saw said that if I'd got help after falling down the steps, this probably wouldn't have happened."

If your car started making a strange noise, you'd investigate. Hearing that strange noise and doing something about it might save your gearbox, or prevent an accident.

Your body is self-maintaining, so it needs a lot less maintenance than a car. But it still makes sense to check if something doesn't seem quite right. Getting help is not whingeing-- it's getting valuable information that could save you from really having something to whinge about.

If you don't want to visit a doctor or therapist, I'm sure you have your reasons.

You can still get useful information about your back from doing some of the exercises on this site. Use a common sense attitude, and be wary of any exercises that hurt you.