Welcome to The Back Pain Blog!

The Back Pain Blog, as it’s name so cleverly suggests is all about back pain and the effect that it can have on daily life. Rather than a regurgitation of stories from around the net, well actually there is a bit of that too, but most of the articles are written from my own experiences of living with chronic back pain and as such I have a bit of background as to why this site exists. Don’t worry, I will try and keep the boring details to a minimum!

My Story

Working as a Motor Mechanic I had always had an aching back, some days were worse than others but mostly it did not bother me too much. In 2002 my partner Belinda and I decided to start our own business. We had just sold our first house and had managed to upgrade to a better house with change left over and it seemed wise to do something useful with the money we had.

Initially the business was set up as a mobile operation, operating out of the back of a trailer hauled around by a newly aquired 4×4. This was probably my first mistake as a lot of heavy lifting (the trolley jack for one) was required when we reached each job. Business could not have been better and in 2003 we moved into a workshop not far from home as the travelling time involved in the mobile operation was eating into the number of jobs we could do in a day.

workshop

After moving to the workshop the business continued to do well and I remember working crazy hours, six and sometimes seven days a week. What I was not mindful of at the time was my self-preservation habits. If we had an engine on the floor and it was in the way I would simply drag it out of the way and instead of using the gearbox jack I would lift gearboxes into place  from the floor without even thinking about it. Using the right equipment took too long when there was so much work to get through each day. These stupid habits coupled with leaning over bonnets the rest of the time led to my downfall.

Late September in 2005 the back pains became more frequent and I can distinctly remember sitting on the bullbar of a Landcruiser and bending down to fit a new radiator when I felt something let go in my lower back. The pain was incredible and after getting myself down off the cruiser I crawled to the phone and rang Belinda to come and help me.

The next few weeks were spent dosed up with pain killers, going from Doctor’s appointment to Doctor’s appointment, trying to carry on some work to keep the doors of the workshop open. By December 2005 I had had enough and we turned over the business to a good friend who was renting some workshop space from us at the time. My intention was to have a break for a couple of weeks and start doing mobile repairs again after Christmas.

Christmas came and went with no improvement in my back pain, Easter came and went also and by this time the money was running low and so was my confidence that I would be able to work on cars again. We paid a visit to our local Social Security office and after a bit of stuffing around I was put on a Disability Allowance. After making good money for so many years this was the first big shock that I got, it was about a quarter of what we made with the business!

So here we are in May of 2009 and still I am dependent on pain killers, we are no closer to finding out the exact cause of my pain than we were in 2005, although I do know a lot of conditions that it isn’t! After years of lessened activity I now believe that a lot of my back pain is muscular and although I am working towards rectifying this, it is a hard, long road to travel by the looks of things.

There are so many things that I would do differently if I had the chance. I thought I was being smart working my b**t off for a few years and then taking things easy. Looking back, that time would never have come and I would have continued to work hard while I was able and the work was there. Also now I can see that at the time my partner and two children (we have since had a third) were suffering and I was stupid for thinking my time was best spent working hard to provide for them in a monetary sense only.

With little that modern medicine can do for me at this stage I am content (for the moment at least) to survive on the pain killers and keep trying different therapies and the like for long term relief. One thing that I am only now just starting to enjoy is the change in lifestyle that this situation has brought to me. I am now the ‘official stay at home parent’ and I am slowly adapting to the responsibilities that come with the title. So it’s not all bad, I get to write this blog which I enjoy and can now focus on what is really important in life – family.

That sums up my/our story in a nutshell, if you would like to share your story with us please do so by using the Contact Us page, we’d love to hear from you.

Thanks for stopping by!

Craig