Wed, why does it hurt?

Well - to give a little background, I had a re-visit to the painful side of this problem, last week. I got up at 0530, to get ready for work. As I slowly raised myself on my legs, I felt my upper body shift left, while my lumbar shifted right. Felt odd, then acute pain started. I sat back down on the bed and assessed how I felt. I went over a quick body-scan and when I felt that things were not too bad, I again began to raise myself on my legs. I told myself that I would be fine and that this happens from time to time, but it has been quite a while! Showered and got ready for work. I eased myself into the truck and drove in for 0620.
When I arrived at work and went to ease out of the truck, I noticed that there was now shooting pain down both of my legs. "This is not good" So I began to implement my emergency plan for myself. This means that I plan on not moving too much, I do stretch my back and legs on a constant basis and try to minimize the amount of unneeded movement as best I can. Pacing is the modern term. Well I paced everything I did that day. And yes, I used all of the coping mechanisms that I had available to relieve this a bit. I spent the day, going from 10 minute walks to 5 minute stretches and back again. I practiced meditation, almost immediately, at 0600 in order to gain insights into the issues I was dealing with. My employer, later in the day, asked me why I did not go home? Well, good question, I probably should have, but I felt that my staff had been here and they needed their days off too. I felt, at the time, that I would be able to learn a bit from this incident. Learn to more fully integrate meditation, practice mindful movement and in general, get a better understanding for myself. BTW - I also had a physio that morning and as I put it to my Therapist there, "you are seeing a 1 in 100 day, I don't normally have issues like this." He looked things over and quickly told me: "do everything that you normally would do for yourself, when your are in a high pain cycle and use all of the medications that you are allowed to use. Keep stretching all the time and I want to see you ASAP as well!"
I spent the rest of the day, just getting things down as best I could and really feeling like the best thing for me would be to stop all activity. The problem is that I know from 25+ years experience that doing this only results in my stiffening up really badly and with that it takes forever to get me loosened up again. So what is the plan? Hot, cold, TENS unit, walking, stretching, self massage, meditation, body scans, guided imagery of healing hands on my body. Trying to sleep at night and not make the incident catastrophic.

Chronic Pain Industry -- ! ? !

Hello, I guess you may have figured out with a name change, that I am thinking in a whole new lineage of thought, Yep! Nonsequtor as usual! The reason for this is that I have spent many months in pursuit of answers to my condition. You see, I have a problem with my spine. It started with trying to figure out why I ached a lot. 24 months later, I am told, "Well - I have good news and bad news. Good news is I know why you hurt, Bad news is there is not much I can do to fix it." And so this was my final verdict on my issues with my spine. I since have figured out that like most things, you need to be very careful how you work, how you play and how you get around. I posted the question and title, "Chronic Pain Industry" because as much as everyone wants a solution to this problem, there seems to be a great reluctance to "FIX" this really well. Think about it. We have all kinds of "Therapies". Pharmacology, Mind-Body, Cog-Behav-Therapy, straight meditation, pain-killer, anti-inflamatories, ice, aroma-therapy, Reiki? Physical Therapy, and a whole host of other things that promise to help you.

Let me tell you this, I'm not convinced, having experienced what I describe as "discomfort" and what I mean is that my back,neck,legs and hurting, so much so, that I can only sit, walk and meditate for 10 to 20 minutes at a time, on any task, and must keep moving in order not to freeze up. I have sciatica that has not been part of my issues for about 18 months, but today is so bad that my right legs feels like there is a spike through it and my flesh ripped off the upper leg. I work at maintaining an attitude of acceptance and equinimity. I have had this before. I've had blood pressure through the roof, and been to ER to get shots drop the acute pain side.

I ask about the "Industry" because of this point. Is all of this just a form of snake oil salemanship? Is a person in pain, willing to do anything to move away from the pain and pay anything for that "Service"? Probably, and that is my thought, are we being duped into thinking that we can fix ourselves, for a pile of cash and the right healer, or is the best thing for us to do, is just sit quietly and listen to our breath and listen to our heart. Can I open to the pain and feel the waves crash upon me, as the ocean runs onto shore.

Yes - I can, I can live with pain and begin to learn from it, for every day is completely different and a wonder that I am still here. Think about the 300 billion blood cells that have spent the last 24 hours running around, without you every having to direct them to pick up harmful things and expell them from your lungs, and you never directed any of it. How cool is that.

I am going to take the time to catalogue my 25 years of experience with acute, and then chronic pain, sciatica, lumbar issues and a whole host of issues, as they arise.