The Bad Back Book

by Jerry Wayne

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0918024250
• ISBN13: 9780918024251
• Release Date: January 1983
• Publisher: Ox Bow Press
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Former Back Pain Patient & Current Medical Scientist

In adolescence, I experienced a pars defect at L4, which led in early adulthood to a spondylolisthesis with excruciating pain in my back, radiating into my buttocks and one leg. Fortunately, by this time I had been on the staff for several years of Rancho Los Amigos Hospital in Downey California a major rehabilitation teaching hospital, and part of the University of Southern California School of Medicine. This is significant, because the first "problem back pain" treatment unit was established by Vert Mooney, M.D. at Rancho in the early 1970s. He has recently been awarded the Wiltse Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Society for the Study of the Lumbar Spine. This is significant because he and other orthopedic surgeons at the hospital were real medical scientists and objectively studied the results of available back surgery techniques, usually reporting a mixed bag of outcomes. When I hurt my back, I asked for some guidance and one of these physicians recommended Jerry Wayne's book, soon after it came out in 1983. I used it successfully myself and then began to recommend it to my own patients who were participating in "work hardening", a program that I developed at Rancho in the mid-1970s. Over the years, I have purchased and given away more than a dozen of these books, generally hearing back that the story was engaging and believable and the exercises were useful. Later in my career, I spent 10 years on the editorial board of the journal Spine and had the opportunity to peer review dozens of papers addressing symptom control and rehabilitation after low back injury. I've also had several of my own papers published in this and other scientific journals. The bottom line is that surgery should be avoided until the possible benefits of exercise have been exhausted. The only two scientifically supported approaches to exercise for the relief of low back pain of which I'm aware are the "work conditioning" approach developed by Tom Mayer and his colleagues at PRIDE, and the "mechanical low back pain" approach developed by Robin McKenzie of New Zealand. Although the approach described by Jerry Wayne in this book has not been scientifically studied, it is consistent with the philosophies of these other approaches and, at least on an anecdotal basis from reasonably sophisticated readers, quite effective. Until the United States gets away from the "piece rate" approach to medical care, many orthopedic specialist physicians and physical medicine and rehabilitation physicians are not going to take the time or effort to educate their patients (for which they do not get paid), but will either cut or inject as their primary solution to problem spinal pain. Jerry Wayne's book provides another alternative that, in my opinion, is worth considering.

The Good Book for Bad Backs

In 1972, I dropped my wiggly two-year-old, caught him before he hit the floor (head downward), and spent the next week lying on the floor. The exercises in this book are why I'm still walking. I've bought and given away ten copies since then. Buy this book. Read it. Believe it. Practice it. And live pain free. But don't ask your orthopedist about it. He'll diss it, because the exercises were designed by an undocumented Arab physician in the desert of Algeria.

The BEST Bad Back Book!

I was down for three weeks with back spasms in 1965 and was treated by a good friend, a highly respected orthopedic surgeon. Unfortunately, he did not understand the mechanics of the back and I got better in spite of his treatment. I later got good advice from a diagnostic orthopedic doctor, who did understand the mechanics of the back and instructed me on how to deal with it. A friend gave me a copy of this book and I was a total skeptic before reading it and trying the exercises. It works and I have given fifteen copies to others over the years. At age 72, it has helped me live the normal life I never expected. Thank you Jerry Wayne.

I tell my back-bothered friends about it.

When I was sentenced, years ago, to two weeks bed rest for sciatica lower back pain, a neighbor lent me the book. I read the humorous real life story of tribulations with surgery, chiropractic, and accupuncture, then started doing the simple exercises in the book's appendix. What a great thing! Slow steady progress until I got back to enjoying tennis at full enthusiasm. I even use one or two of the exercises on a plane for ironing out the kinks from flying for a couple of hours. It has been wonderful for me!

Only thing that helped my back.

Recommended to me 20 years ago by head of Nuclear medicine at San Francisco General Hospital. Could only stay up for short periods of time before. Now I have no problem and give it to friends who have back trouble. Must do exercises religiously for long term, but immediate relief with relaxing exercises.