What Back Pain Taught Me
A metaphor for crisis management.
In lieu of the usual, I wanted to talk about a specific experience and how it affected my mindset towards hardship.
I had been plagued by acute and chronic back pain for about 5 years. It was the worst. It affects you when you’re sitting and standing. You can’t sit or move in certain positions because of acute pain shooting down your back, leg, and foot. You are constantly re-shuffling your posture as you’re trying to work, party, or sleep. You walk into restaurants and wonder if the particular chair will bother you during the entire meal.
Thankfully, I have been completely pain-free for nearly 2 years. Here is what the physical pain and mental stress from my back injury taught me about stress management, problem-solving, and positivity.
What Caused Back Pain?
In the summer of 2018, I was under immense stress caused by moving cities, work obligations, a breakup after a long relationship, and getting ready for law school. To combat all this, I engaged in strenuous physical activity: 6-9 hours/week of competitive dance team practice, deadlifts and barbell squats without proper form, and 2x/week of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu (BJJ) which I had picked up about 7 months prior.
The adrenaline rush felt amazing, but it was a bad idea.
I was 24 years old, had never really injured myself before, and felt like I was at my physical peak. In reality, I was submitting my body to high pressure to get over mental stress.
At some point later that summer, I felt acute pain in my back whenever I bent forward. It felt as if someone was ripping my body in two, and I had never felt that kind of excruciating pain ever in my life. I was preparing for a dance competition, and the choreography involved a lot of abrupt jerking movements that didn’t help. I stopped weightlifting and saw a physician, who recommended that I hang free from bars and stretch myself out.
By that point it was already August, and I was set to move to Philadelphia later that month. There was no time to really diagnose what was wrong with my back or seek physical therapy, which also was a foreign concept to me at time.
Terrible timing.
The Start of Paranoia
I started law school in Fall 2018, which required a LOT of time sitting down while attending classes and studying in the library. Considering how a lot of the back pain relief methods suggest active movement, my new lifestyle was quite the opposite. Unfortunately, that’s just how the timing was.
In the summer of 2019, I sought a physical therapist in Virginia where my family lives. We were able to gradually relieve the pain and I felt painless again for a bit, heading into the new semester in the Fall. For most people, back pain halts here.
However, I was now obsessed with ‘checking’ to see if the pain was there or not, which ended up aggravating the back even more. I was also unwise to get back right into a lot of physical activities, like joining the boxing club. I became paranoid and anxious about the pain coming back, and kept stretching and moving my back to check, until acute pain returned to my disheartenment. This time, it was accompanied by a strange type of sciatica as well. I felt a strange nerve tingling in my feet and heels that I couldn’t get rid of by stretching or nerve-flossing.
I spiraled into doctor shopping - if one specialist couldn’t fix the problem after some time, I sought out a different one or method hoping there’d be some magical cure. Here is the timeline of the steps I took, with the key events bolded:
2018 Summer, Berkeley - Injured. See physician who prescribed aspirin
2019 Summer, Virginia - Visited physical therapist A, gradually resolved back issue
2019 Winter, Virginia - After aggravating it during Fall semester, went to therapist A again to find temporary relief
2020 Spring, Philly - Visited chiropractor A
2020 Spring, Philly - Went to a new physical therapist B
2020 Spring, Philly - Went to an acupuncturist
2020 Summer, Virginia- Revisited physical therapist A. Can’t do much physical activity during COVID lockdown at home
2020 Fall, Virginia - Took MRI from medical doctor, advised pain isn’t anything crazy. Revisited therapist A
2021 Spring, Philly - Went to same Philly clinic, assigned therapist C
2021 Summer, Virginia - Went to Chinese medicine doctor A, temporary relief
2021 Fall, New York - Went to a back specialist doctor, received epidural injection
2021 Fall, New York - Visited physical therapist D, treated with weightlifting
2021 Fall, New York - Visited Chinese medicine doctor B
2021 Fall, New York - Visited Chinese medicine doctor C
2022 Spring, New York - Visited chiropractor B
2022 Summer, Korea - Took another MRI. There was nothing wrong detected, which drove me insane
2022 Fall, New York - Visited Chinese medicine doctor D, recommended the below
2022 Fall, New York - Visited chiropractor C, who I continued seeing for overall physical management and wellness
A lot of money and time spent without fruitful results.
As I count here, I sought out around 20 people to fix my back and nerve-tingling problem but most were unnecessary. The issue that was driving me crazy was that I only had a mild disc bulge on my MRI, which isn’t supposed cause huge pain per se. So then where was this source of my acute pain and nerve-tingling?! If you saw me during these years, you probably saw me constantly stretching my thighs and leg to floss the nerves.
In addition to all this, I studied on my own all the relevant literature and YouTube videos to try out if there’s a cure. If you’re interested, here is Squat University, Dr. Stuart McGill, and Dr. Sun Kun Chung (정선근) whose works I studied a lot during these years.
How I Became Pain-Free
One of the more frustrating things about back pain was that I purposefully held myself back from doing certain things, like dancing or BJJ. My general confidence also declined as I was usually paranoid about my back, with fears the pain would affect me at inconvenient times again.
Ironically, it was only after deciding to re-enroll in BJJ in Spring 2023 when I realized that my entire body was very, very tight from the tense movements and paranoia all those years. I was also moderately weightlifting about 5-6x/week, although my back probably would’ve benefited more from aerobic activities. I was obsessed with straightening my core muscles, which is indeed an important idea but I neglected to listen to my whole body.
It took a lot of courage to sign up for an activity that initially contributed to the back pain again. But after regular stretches, warm-ups, and calisthenics in addition to the aerobic nature of BJJ, coupled with a certain yoga YouTube channel, I gained my flexibility back and my back pain and nerve tingling finally disappeared. So ultimately, it was a cumulative tight body problem, rather than a sole back issue.
In a way I felt a bit despondent thinking I had wasted away my mid-late 20s stressing over my back. But overall I was just relieved my body felt normal again. My back pain journey that started in 2018 ended in 2023, but of course I am still careful in athletic activities and learned to listen to my whole body.
What a relief.
Conclusion
The very activity I was avoiding turned out to be the solution.
I had neglected to see the forest due to my obsession with a single tree. Because I was so focused on my back and nerves, I failed to listen to my whole body which was tense all these years. Because of the past experience of acute pain, I refrained from stretching or bending forward altogether, which further tightened up my back muscles as I always leaned backwards.
I suppose, that sometimes the very things we avoid and fear out of failure or pain might provide a new perspective. It’s the courage, or even so the “whatever YOLO fuck it” attitude that provides the extra impetus to stop over-obsessing over a certain problem.
Physical therapist D said, “back pain is like the stock market. If you monitor activity every single day at every hour, you’re bound to go insane.” I think this applies to other stressful things in life, and I try to go back to the decision tree of 1) what I can control and 2) what I can’t while listening to my body.
I still incorporate some of the stretches or exercises I’ve learned from the various specialists over the years. It’s a learning lesson in how I perceive and manage crisis, which is bound to manifest itself in different forms throughout life.
As I live my life and encounter new problems that don’t resolve themselves instantly, I remind myself to see the bigger picture and think about what I may be missing, rather than seek a quick solution expecting instant relief.
If you have back pain or some other form of a long-standing problem, I wish you best of luck. You’ll get through it.
Thanks for reading! I’ll occasionally share personal stories like this one in light of how they shaped my perspectives towards life, career, and more. I’ll be back to regularly scheduled programming soon.