In the last article, one of the key points was: When muscles along our spine are injured, the nerve paths to those muscles in many cases are NOT restored without undue delay. (We at the Better Back system believe this happens because most of us most of the time DON'T use our backs as Nature intended.)

So when our muscles are out of balance ? pulling strongly on one side of the spine ? when there is little or no resistance on the other side ? because the muscles have been switched off by the brain ? and have not yet been switched back on again (sometimes years later) ? is it any wonder we experience constant or regularly recurring back pain? Now to answer this question:

Why do doctors, chiropractors or other health professionals in most cases provide temporary relief at best? Scenario

Picture yourself looking at your own spine from behind. Take yourself out of your body and imagine standing behind yourself.You may have injured an area of your lower back because you picked up a heavy object awkwardly.Or you bent over to tie up your shoelace and twisted your back and the pain still nags occasionally. So your brain has switched off the injured muscle(s) along your vertebra, just like it's supposed to do. But the muscles on the other side of your spine weren't injured, so they are still active.

And you like to watch a lot of TV, lounging in your comfy chair. Or you work at a computer screen all day long sitting in an awkward chair with your shoulders tight and stressed most of the day. Or you do both! So because you aren't using your back as Nature intended ? or worse, you are actively misusing your back ? your brain has not switched these injured muscles back on.

They are still inactive. Muscle Imbalance The result of the above scenario is that we finish up with strong, active muscles on one side of our vertebrae, while on the other side the muscles are switched-off and inactive. This resulting muscle imbalance will pull vertebrae out of position. Sometimes, only by a small amount, but often, when a group of muscles alongside each other are switched off, the vertebrae will be displaced quite considerably. In extreme cases, scoliosis can result. That's when the serious trouble can start, and long-term pain can set in. Medical Treatments The better physicians at least have a go at checking for other conditions which may be causing the pain. These can include kidney and liver problems, spinal stenosis where the canal which carries the spinal cord gradually shrinks in diameter, infections, even cancer. Of course, you must make sure that these causes are eliminated from your diagnosis before you consider the Better Back system.

Sadly, most doctors when faced with back pain reach for the good old prescription pad and write out a script for a painkiller ? usually a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID). What's wrong with that? The pain disappears, doesn't it? And you can move freely again and get on with your daily activities. And all you have to do is pop a painkiller two or three time a day. Well, there's plenty wrong with that. Some of you may not have heard about the withdrawal of several of the best-known NSAID painkillers, including Vioxx. The drugs had been found to be implicated in the deaths of many thousands of people. NSAIDS certainly can have many very serious side effects. Here's what the website http://www.medicinenet.com/rofecoxib/article.htm has to say about Vioxx (I recommend you read the entire article if you are taking painkillers): ?The most common side effects of rofecoxib (Vioxx) are headache, abdominal pain, dyspepsia, diarrhea, nausea, heartburn and water retention.

Other side effects (!! My emphasis) include insomnia, urinary retention (inability to urinate), heart failure, aggravation of hypertension, chest pain, ringing in the ears, stomach and intestinal ulcers, bleeding, blurred vision, anxiety, weight gain, flu-like symptoms, drowsiness and weakness.? Evidence for cardiovascular side effects was strongest for Vioxx and Bextra, intermediate for Celebrex, and weak for Naproxen. The best advice I can offer is to use painkillers very, very cautiously, and for short periods only, and to ease your way off them by following the suggestions I have in the manual which is part of the Better Back system. Manual Adjustments Physical therapists and manipulators have a lot of expertise in pushing vertebrae back into place. Some do it by gentle manipulation; others may use a lot of accelerative force. Some warm up the area beforehand, others just go straight for it. In most cases, the vertebrae are restored into alignment, and that awful back pain stops.

Temporarily. Can you now guess why most adjustments will not last? Yep, because the underlying cause has not been fixed.

The muscle imbalance is still there. So after a short time, the strong, active muscles overpower the weak non-functioning muscles and the spine is pulled out of shape once again.

Long-term Weakness Sets In As this cycle of manipulation is repeated week after week, month after month, a long-term weakness can set in. In particular, ligaments are stretched each time the strong muscles overpower the non-functioning muscles, and again when adjustment takes place. So What's the Solution? Well, I think you may have guessed by now that a necessary long-term solution is to re-activate (or switch back on) the muscles so they can be balanced on both sides of the spine. And that just happens to be one of the key results from the Better Back systemm's unique five-step, five-minute exercise routine. Note, this is a shameless plug for something that actually works:

You know, the word ?unique? is thrown around a lot nowadays. It's meant to mean ?Radically distinctive and without equal? or ?The single one of its kind?. In other words, there should be nothing else in the world that is the same. To the very best of my knowledge, there is NOTHING else in the world like this combination of exercises which are described and demonstrated vividly on the 40 minute DVD (or video ? your choice) which comes with the Better Back system. For example, one of the effects of this five-step process is to provide regular ? in fact, daily ? self-adjustment of the vertebra in your spine. This means your spine has a chance to always be in tip-top condition. Another effect is to strengthen muscles in the spinal areas. And of course, the granddaddy of them all ? the special movements apparently have the effect of restoring nerve signals to switched-off muscles. That's why I believe I can honestly claim these exercises to be unique.

In the next article we explore how to restore healthy joints and cut inflammation.

Live life free of back pain! Rick Rakauskas