

The day my brain forgot where my back was - gdee
http://lucys-backbreak.blogspot.com/

======
noelwelsh
Taking a bigger picture:

Muscle atrophy is one of the biggest causes of reduced quality of life in the
elderly (and also the not so elderly). Women in particular are susceptible to
this due to their smaller amount of muscle mass to begin with and the general
cultural aversion to women undertaking resistance exercise. My own experience
(as a man and admitted gym rat) is that resistance training sorts out my back
problem (and generally improves my life in other ways).

So, who's for deadlifts? :)

~~~
nfnaaron
I've (male) been going to they gym almost a year, after 30 years of sloth,
it's made a huge difference.

I've heard some concern from women who don't want to work out too hard because
they don't want to bulk up. I'm no expert, the responses I've heard have
generally been something like most women aren't genetically prone to bulking,
you're just going to get more fit, stronger and toned.

In case there are any women here who have had similar concerns. IMO you're
much better off being strong and fit. Working out is not (necessarily) about
body building, it's about health, ability and quality of life.

~~~
jules
> they don't want to bulk up

This is probably just an excuse for not exercising. I have never seen a woman
in real life who would become more attractive by losing muscle, except
professional sportswomen (and there's a reasonable chance that those women are
using some kind of drug to get more muscles). Actually unless you're fat free
you will probably bulk down rather than bulk up.

~~~
bitwize
Skinny Jessica Biel = just another actress.

Jessica Biel with muscles = hot.

I for one welcome our new amazon overlords (overladies?) and think there are
worse ways to go than death by snu snu.

------
gdee
responding to csarva(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1271567)(I> can't
seem to reply to individual messages anymore):

>[re-]building core strength

That's [re-]building strength in core muscles (the ones that hold your
skeleton together)... as opposed to motor muscles(those who move your
limbs)... that is the crux of the whole article, and I think it makes a lot of
difference. The way you put it leads to think to core moral strength.

Edit: The excruciating pain is also not core to the article. In her case,
damaged nerves lead to muscle fatigue being manifested in lack of power and
quite pointedly lack of pain in certain circumstances when pain was to be
expected (though she also describes experiencing said excruciating pain).

Edit2: Actually, although the article is interspersed with passages of
personal drama (it /is/ a blog post, on /her/ blog) it is also filled with too
much information to be easily tl;dr'ed... Also, the post itself is a
postmortem style post in which what happened over a long period of time is
condensed. Further compression runs high risks of being lossy I think.

------
youngian
Does anyone have a link to further information on the muscle repair stuff she
cited? The part about how after 25, your brain might just give muscles up for
lost?

------
naner
Well I was going to make some comments on specific parts of this blog post but
there is just too much crap. Don't do anything the woman did in this article.
Not even what she settled for at the end. She kept looking to quacks for
quick-fixes where she didn't have to do any work when in reality all she
needed was some physical therapy (which is hard work and a longer process and
actually fixes your dysfunction).

If you don't want to get into this situation in the first place there are even
preventative physical therapy programs like egoscue and specific types of
yoga. Avoid joint/bone "manipulators" and all that other new-age BS, though.

~~~
danbmil99
Sounds to me like her muscle atrophy was preceded by a long period of intense
pain due to one or more herniated discs. A proper course of treatment would
have included pain killers and muscle relaxants simply to get her to the point
where there was less spasm. Then she could have done physical therapy to build
up her strength.

The Chiropractors here are the most to blame -- they took a bad situation and
made it much, much worse. Note that the last guy in the UK who called them out
for quackery spent years fighting a libel suit.

------
cracki
when i was in high school, i had problems with my back and neck.

we were referred to a doctor about this. he sized me up in 5 minutes. then he
revealed to us his chiropractor nature and said he'd do his thing. i wasn't
asked if that's what i want. it didn't occur to me either, because he's an
authority figure, right? so he did his thing. and it got worse. my neck felt
bent out of shape and weak.

we had to see another doctor who prescribed muscle strength work. because that
was the problem. fucked up muscles.

why the heck do people still believe in chiropractors? they're all frauds,
every single one of them.

------
csarva
my tl;dr summary - After seeing several doctors and chiropractors for her
excruciating back pain, Lucy found that exercise and [re-]building core
strength was the answer. The problem was her muscles, not her bones.

------
cracki
and what is it with "waiting months to see a doctor"?

i live in germany (socialized health care) and if there's something wrong with
you, you either see your GP or walk into the next (teaching) hospital.
whatever further referral you need is just days away, if not just an elevator
ride and a knock on a door.

waiting months, docs who dismiss your opinion, trusting chiropractors... what
is wrong with you?

~~~
danbmil99
England. They beat you in the last war.

------
iag
For those in the bay area, did you have similar success with muscle training
treatments? If so, can you please refer me to a few sources where I can get
help starting my regiment?

After reading this article I am determined to get my neck and back stronger,
just don't know where to start.

------
tjic
The treatment she got from the government doctors was horrible.

This bit gives me chills: "We were told that we would wait at least four
months for an NHS appointmen"

Uggh.

I'm glad that we still have free market doctors here in the US.

Well, at least for the next four years.

~~~
thaumaturgy
Yeah. My former technician, who I still keep in touch with, needed surgery to
remove a long shunt that had been surgically implanted when he was a child,
due to hydroencephaly.

It took months for him to even get the first appointment, an x-ray which did
little for diagnosis. Months later, he got an MRI, which supported the
diagnosis of calcification of the shunt, but wasn't completely conclusive.
More months later, a biopsy was taken, and again, that wasn't entirely
conclusive, but at this point the doctors were suggesting that it be
surgically removed.

So, he goes in for surgery -- nearly 6 months after the last round of tests.
The surgeon begins removing sections of it, but it's slow going because the
shunt keeps breaking apart and falling back into the body.

The surgeon actually runs out of time to finish the job and sews him up,
having only removed around 6 of the 18 inches of shunt.

Then, only a couple of hours after the surgery, my tech was asked to leave the
hospital, because they were out of recovery rooms and couldn't put him up any
longer. They also couldn't spare a gurney or, apparently, a wheelchair; he was
walked out of the hospital while still groggy.

Now he'll have to go back in for more surgery, all at further public expense,
to finish the job that should have been finished last year.

...Oh, except for one thing: this is in the U.S.

He's a young kid by the way, and the only reason that he isn't completely
bankrupted by all of this is that he's covered under a public care option
specifically for children that had hydroencephaly.

\--

I've done my best to respond calmly and civilly here; I know that it's easier
to win opinions that way. At least, that's what I want to believe. However,
this "free market health care" nonsense absolutely infuriates me. Its
proponents will point to any weakness they can find in socialized health
systems, while simultaneously wearing rose-colored goggles for our own ailing
health system. They're lying to themselves, and they're lying to other people,
and it's absolutely embarrassing that a modern, first-world country doesn't
consider health care to to be an import aspect of an advanced society -- one
that, like education, should be provided to the greatest number of its
citizens possible.

I've had an aunt die of stomach cancer, and my grandfather slowly dehydrated
away in a hospital because that, apparently, is how congestive heart failure
is handled in the U.S. I keep in mind that most doctors do the best they can,
and most hospitals are understaffed and overbooked. But, to ignore the ills of
our system here and be "glad" for it is preposterous.

~~~
lotharbot
It's also preposterous to pretend our system is "free market". It's a highly
regulated market with significant barriers to entry, as well as substantial
government intervention.

It's sad that whenever the topic comes up, half of all people seem to think
the blame lies with the "free market", while the other half seem to think "at
least we're not socialist".

We can do so much better. We can make sure that more of our citizens have
access to health care. We can improve its quality. We can reduce wait times.
And we can reduce costs. Some of those things can be accomplished by taking a
more socialist approach to certain parts of health care, and others can be
accomplished by taking a more _free_ market stance to other parts. Use
socialism where it works; use free market principles where they work; don't
get so caught up over the "evils" of either system to dismiss it when it's
actually good.

~~~
noonespecial
A better way to measure a health care system might be "how many stops does the
money make on its way from patient to doctor?". You can name it socialist,
capitalist, or Dr. Suess, but if the money has to go through dozens of
thieving and incompetent hands on its way to the doctor, the system is a
failure.

My fear for the "new" US health system is that we're just trading one set of
middle-men for another (likely equal) set. People already trained in 2-party
thinking will decide that neither works and health care is actually impossible
and give up.

