Lose The Back Pain Program Review Post 2

This is the second installment on my Lose The Back Pain program review. It has only been a few days and I feel much better already. My pain level has dropped from a fairly consistent level eight out of ten down to about a five. This has taken place in just four days! Obviously the program is working.

On Tuesday I sent in a request for further information about how to treat my specific condition. I was immediately contacted by co-owner Steve Hefferon. He provided me with a great deal of information both by e-mail and on the phone. After speaking with Steve it made more sense why the manual is not longer than it is. The manual provides the foundation and if you have specific questions they handle them one on one. And yes, an actual person works with you. I am quite pleased with the customer service that I have received.
There are a number of tools that will help you do the system that can set you back a few dollars but they are not an absolute necessity. For instance an inversion table cost anywhere from $200 on up. But you can also use a Swiss ball to decompress your spine for as little as $20. There is also a trigger point kit that is about $125 but you can get by using a tennis ball. Another goody that would be nice but not necessary is a far infrared heating pad which start at $150. But if money is an object, which it sometimes is, you can use a moist heat heating pad. Obviously the cheaper alternatives are a compromise and you will lose some of the programs effectiveness by not having them. But one way around this is to purchase these things as money allows and use the alternative in the meantime.

Being that I work in the field of sports nutrition I was very interested in learning more about how diet effects pain. Steve provided me with a number of links and a plethora of information on such things as systemic enzyme therapy. Systemic enzymes are naturally occurring enzymes which help to breakdown scar tissue that causes stiffness and pain when it collects on connective tissue throughout the body. As we age we produce less of these enzyme however by supplementation we can increase the amount we have in our bodies. But this is a subject for another blog post. I am very pleased with the program and the customer support thus far. I will have more installations as I progress.

Lose The Back Pain Program Review

I just purchased the Lose The Back Pain program from The Healthy Back Institute. As a personal trainer and exercise enthusiast the course had a great deal of appeal. The idea behind the program is that back problems are caused by muscle imbalances that create stress on the spine. This stress eventually leads to back problems. In my case my pain goes from my right low back all the way down into my right foot. I know from personal experience that my gluteus muscles on the injured side are weaker than on the non-injured side of my back. Opposing this is the fact that my left gluteus muscles and hamstrings are significantly tighter on the left which is the non-injured side. So it would seem logical from a biomechanical stand point that if I equalize the opposing muscle groups it will balance the stress on my spine. Another aspect that I find interesting is that it also includes nutrition and aspects of mental conditioning into the program. It is well researched that you can increase the healing capability of your body and reduce the amount of inflammation by manipulating your diet. So diet is very important. Mental attitude and keeping the mind in a calmer state will certainly decrease the level of your pain. So it seems to be pulling a lot of things right out of my own playbook. It definitely seems to be very intuitive so I decided to buy the program.

The program is a self help, self diagnosis program but there is a help center to answer questions if you are not sure of something. The program starts by you taking four pictures of yourself consisting of front, back, left and right side views. You look at the pictures and compare them to illustrations in the book which show common spinal conditions. I found that to be fairly easy to do although I would not use that to replace a doctors diagnosis. If you have seen a doctor and have been previously diagnosed it is easy to relate the doctors findings to your own. The second step is to look up the specific exercises that are recommended for your condition. One thing that is highly recommended in the course is the use of an inversion table to decompress the spine. I just bought one so its to soon to tell how effective it is. But I can tell you it does provide a very good stretch. I also just started the exercises and I’ll do some further investigation on the nutrition. I had to give up my weight lifting for an undetermined period of time. But if I can get my back working better I can make up for any lost ground once I am feeling better. I will also provide you folks with some simple meditation and visualization techniques that should work well with the system. Keep an eye out for this in future blog posts.

The program cost me a little over a hundred dollars with shipping. The materials I received were 3 audio CD’s, 2 DVD’s, an instructional binder and a workbook. The binder was a bit diminutive and did not give a great deal of detail. The course seems to have a lot of information justifying the use of muscle balancing techniques to correct various spinal conditions but not a lot on nutritional strategies or on mind body techniques to use. Although it does contain links to other sites and there is a customer service help system to assist you if you have questions. I feel that including more information on what foods are inflammatory and anti-inflammatory would be helpful. It would also be nice if there was a simple explanation of how to do visualization and meditation. I will send them a link to this blog. Perhaps my feedback will help them to improve the program. As for the value, if it provides a decent level of relief I feel that it is well worth the money. It seems to be a sound system so I have very high hopes. I’ll keep you posted as I work my way through the system.

The Lingering Shadows of Willowbrook

I started my first carpet cleaning company at the age of 23. I have spent a great deal of my working life working in the carpet cleaning industry. When you work as a carpet cleaner you see the full spectrum of economic diversity in America. I have cleaned carpets in homes ranging from opulent multimillion dollar estates to seedy flop houses. I've been called on to clean up after floods, crime scenes, people with up to a hundred cats that used the entire house as a litter box, or after a person has passed away. I have seen the best and the worst of what life has to offer. The range of people that I have met is equally as diverse as the homes and situations that have lead me to be called upon for service. After seeing the type of human suffering that I have seen you begin to develop a hardness, a sort of tough shell that allows you to deal with people that are faced with tragic circumstances. Yet as hard as you become there are images that stay with you and pierce through the hardened shell of your indifference.

One morning I received a call from a landlord who had several low income apartments scattered about in a rust belt city that borders on the Hudson river in upstate New York. She would call whenever she had a turnover so that we could clean the carpets before the next tenant moved in. Most of the jobs involved some sort of problem situation like pet odors, heavy soil or large stains. This particular job entailed cleaning carpets in an apartment that was a boarding house flat occupied by three men. One of the three men had recently been incarcerated for assaulting another man that lived in the apartment. So she wanted to have the carpets cleaned before his replacement moved in. The man who was assaulted had recently cleaned the bathroom and complained to his assailant for urinating on the bathroom floor. A fight broke out and the man who had complained was beaten and thrown through the second story window, shattering the glass and landing in the ally below. Fortunately he escaped with only cuts a bruises. My wife and I drove to the apartment in our carpet cleaning van. The apartment was located in a rundown section of town that was once a working class neighborhood during the height of the industrial revolution and into the early nineteen seventies. But now the homes were in bad disrepair and the area had become very seedy. The landlord brought us into the apartment so that we could estimate the cleaning cost. I immediately smelled a pungent odor of stale cooking, cat urine and filth. The hall and stairs were carpeted with a short shag multicolor carpet that was widely used in low income homes during the 1970's. The center of the stairs were soiled to the point where you could no longer identify what color the carpet was. There were pieces of large debris sitting on top of the face yarn as if the carpet had not been vacuumed in years. At the top of the stairs was a landing that had an old refrigerator and a microwave oven on it. There were three bedrooms each measuring about 9'X12' and a small full bath with a toilet, tub & shower unit and a small hand sink that hung from the wall. The bathroom window that the man had been thrown through was still boarded up. There was no kitchen or dining area nor was there a sink large enough to wash dishes in. Apparently the men would cook their meals in the microwave oven, eat on their beds and wash any dishes in the filthy bathtub that was shared by the three occupants. Words cannot describe the squalor and unsanitary living conditions that these men lived in. We presented the landlord with an estimate and she agree to the price. She asked if it would be alright if the man who had been assaulted stayed in his room while we cleaned his rug. We agreed to that and cleaned the two vacant rooms and the landing before we did his room. I knocked on the door and a small framed man with cuts and bruises on his face answered the door. The man let me in and we engaged in small talk as I was cleaning his carpet. He told me how he ended up living in this apartment. He was once married and worked but he was injured on the job and now has a permanent, partial disability. He said that the lost wage compensation that he receives from New York State Workers Compensation is so low that this is the only housing situation that he can afford. It occurred to me that if he is not killed first the man will live out the remainder of his life in a 9x12 room, eating microwaved food on his bed and washing dishes in a filthy bathtub. His crime was simply becoming disabled while working in New York.


It's easy to point the finger at somebody like this and say that he could do some sort of work. Depending on his disability and skills that may or may not be true. However if you are middle aged, disabled and have a spotty work history the likelihood of obtaining suitable employment is not very good. Being physically able to work and being employable are not the same thing. The laws and programs designed to protect the disabled do nothing to compel or encourage hiring a person that can work nor is there any protection to provide them with a living wage should employment not be available. The Americans With Disabilities Act does not compel employers to hire the disabled. If a person has a spotty work history as a result of being disabled he or she is not even considered for the position. In order for the provision of accommodations to have any real meaning a person would need to be hired first. It is very easy for the HR department to weed out the disabled people intentional or not simply on the basis of work history. To add to the problem not everyone has the skills required to do anything other than be a laborer nor do they have the aptitude to further their education.

I have seen hundreds of these flop houses during my career. Often the people that are living there are disabled and trying to squeak by on an income that is thousands of dollars below the poverty level. Regardless of how you may feel about the disabled if you had ever been inside one of these filthy rat infested apartments it would leave you with a mental image that sticks with you forever. Things have not changed much from a dark period in our history when a reporter named Geraldo Rivera did a documentary called "The Unforgotten" in 1972. It brought to light the horrible living conditions at a New York State run institution for developmentally disabled people called Willowbrook. The occupants lived in filth and endured unspeakable acts of abuse and neglect at the hands of the staff. If not for the documentary by Geraldo Rivera the abuse would likely have continued until today. The New York State run Willowbrook School was in existence from the 1930's until 1987. The school was designed to house 4,000 people but had as many as 6,000 occupants in 1967. Like many New York State institution of it's time people were not referred to by name but instead were called by a number given to them for identification. Much like the case numbers assigned to disabled workers by Workers Comp. Many people that once occupied New York State run facilities like Willowbrook are buried in grave yards where grave markers are marked only by identification numbers. Unless you know the name of the person buried under the marker they are a nameless faceless corpse forgotten by history and left as a memento of a dark period in New York State history. After the Geraldo Rivera report public outcry was such that widespread reform changed the policies regarding the treatment of developmentally disabled people in New York State and Willowbrook was eventually closed.
We like to believe that our society has advanced beyond the mistakes that we made at Willowbrook but when you see the desperately poor people that I have seen living in boarding houses simply because they are disabled you know that we have not changed much since Willowbrook. Although great strides have been made regarding the treatment of developmentally disabled people widespread discrimination and abuse still exists with people with disabilities in New York State. The only real difference between a place like Willowbrook and the flop houses that house the disabled is that instead of six thousand disabled people living in horrid conditions in a single facility they are now spread to flop houses located in slums all over the State of New York. You cannot tell me that the people that oversee the agencies like New York State Workers Compensation and others are blind to the fact that condemning a disabled person to live on compensation that is far below the poverty line is wrong. They are under the delusion that it is what best serves public utility, the majority of citizens in New York are not disabled so the minority are left to suffer. Not only does this ignore the obvious moral implications but it ignores the fact that anyone can become disabled. So having an insurance that provides a living wage to people that cannot work serves the entire populous and not just those who are disabled. Without an angry outcry of the people of New York the disabled are the silent minority just as the people at places like Willowbrook once were. It is rationalized by the idea that it is less expensive to neglect than to serve. If you can wash down a large group of mentally retarded people with a garden hose and a brush it costs the State of New York less to provide their care than it does to bathe them individually. That same line of thought is used in determining the amount paid out in lost wage compensation by New York State Workers Compensation. It is less expensive to provide a person just enough to live in filthy boarding houses than it is to provide a reasonable standard of assistance. But the system supports thousands of lawyers, judges, independent medical examiners and state employees. All of this expense is a drain on the funds that should be going to injured workers. If you eliminate all but an essential few people needed to operate the system you could pay injured workers that cannot work a living wage and it may in fact cost the state less money. Any insurance that does not provide a living wage to a person who is unable to work is unacceptable. If a person can work than the State needs to do everything that it can to assure that they are hired in a capacity suitable to their ability. My feeling is that there should be an adjustable rate disability insurance where the rates that employers pay for insurance decreases in proportion to the number of disabled people a company employs. I agree with those that feel that people that can work should work to the fullest extent of their capabilities. But that is a two sided coin. Employers need to be held accountable to hire disabled people or to pay them not to work if that is how they so chose. New York State Workers Compensation is a carryover from a sad time in our history. It is a shameful system that reeks of the foul stench of times gone by when people thought that institution like Willowbrook provided fair treatment for the disabled. The people of New York State deserve better than this. It is a matter of public utility to have our workers protected by an insurance that provides adequate compensation should a worker become disabled and can no longer work. But to be viable it also needs to compel employers to hire and train people that can work.

Friends of mine have expressed a concern that I may suffer retribution for writing pieces like this. That is a sad statement that we feel that people are not allowed to fight to change unfair laws in a democracy. Think of the thousands of people that must have known what was going on at Willowbrook. Imagine the amount of employees, vendors, contractors, family members of the occupants and New York State officials that knew about the abuse that was taking place at Willowbrook but did nothing to stop it. If not for Geraldo Rivera exercising his right to free speech the abuse would not have been put to rest. You know that Workers Compensation is causing millions of disabled people to live in impoverished conditions. Many disabled people are living far below the poverty level not only in New York State but all over America. If you sit by and do nothing your inaction makes you as complicit as the people who knew about Willowbrook School and chose to do nothing. Your silence allows for millions of people to live below the poverty level simply because they are disabled. A change in the law may someday protect your son or daughter. Even if it only serves to protect people you never know they need your voice to be raised for them.

A gust of wind blows down the back of my neck so I flip up the collar of my jacket and walk staring down at the long shadow I cast on the frost covered leaves. The sun is descending and casts its amber rays through the baron limbs of trees swaying from gusts of November winds. I pause for a moment and stand and listen to the rustle of the leaves blowing across the ground at the Letchworth Village Cemetery. The stillness of my silent reflection is broken by the faint echo of a dog barking in the distance. The steel markers baring only numbers tilting this way and that mark the graves of the people that silent voices had forgotten. Resting here are the souls of those we lost in our complicit acts of silence.

The Power of Positive Thinking

For years pro athletes have kept a secret.  What you think you can do has an enormous effect on what you are able to do.  What you feel you cannot do keeps you from doing what you are actually capable of doing.  They would never be able to rise to the highest level of their sport without having an edge over the ordinary person on the street.  Even guys that eat three pound steaks with mud under their nails and sweat dripping from their brow know the power of positive thinking.   You don't need to drive a hybrid car to a yoga studio to use the power of your mind.  Oddly enough not believing in this makes it not work so if you think it won't work than you are correct.  In fact most people have so much doubt that for the most part it is a bunch of baloney.  But if you think that it will work then it does work so you are also correct.  In fact the stronger your belief is the more powerful it becomes.  The fact that so few people have a strong belief in their ability to effect change with their mind is exactly why so few people ever rise above the fray.  So there is no sense in arguing with someone who differs in opinion about whether positive thinking works or not because whatever you believe about it is true for you.  Obviously if you want to have a more powerful mind and rise above the fray than you need to believe that it will work and practice it with a great deal of effort.

The first thing that you need to understand is that there are basically two levels of thought lets call them awareness and sub-awareness.  If you think and and act on something then you are using your awareness.  If you feel it, dream it, or it happens on its own, its sub-awareness.  You don't need to think to breath or make your heart beat but if something scares you or makes you relax it can change how fast your heart beats and how quickly you breath.  So obviously things that effect your awareness have an effect on your sub-awareness.  So the trick is to use this to your advantage.  Think about your dreams.  Dreams are the thoughts of your sub-awareness.  You don't dream in words but in images.  You see a motion picture of actions that pass before your minds eye while you're asleep.  This is the way that your sub-awareness thinks.  So if you want to tap into the power of the sub-awareness you must create a visual image of what you want.  Some people can close their eyes and see an image of what they want but others can't.  If you are a person that can get a visual image then do that.  If you are not a visual person then form your thoughts with words.  But you have to remember that you create an image with your words.  So you must keep the words all positive or you will spoil the image with negative thoughts.  That sounds complicated until you hear an explanation of it.  Lets say that you break your leg and you want to heal up.  If you say please heal my broken leg you have put an image of you with a broken leg into your sub-awareness.  But if instead you say I have a strong and healthy leg.  You have only put in a positive image.  Did you notice I used the end state by saying I have a healthy leg.  If you say I will have a healthy leg that provides an image of you recovering but not fully recovered.  So always state your desire as an end state of what you want.  You don't want just to work at it ultimately you want to get there.

So how do you use this?  The first thing is to really think about what you want and be very specific.  For instance in the case of the broken leg you want a healthy leg.  If you just ask for good health and you just brushed your teeth your mind may work on good dental health.  Remember it's sub-awareness you really don't know what you are thinking on that level.  So you always want to be very specific.  After you have created a specific desire all in positive terms you need to energize your mind somehow.  Oxygen is fuel for the brain so you need to draw in a larger than normal amount of oxygen but not to the point of hyperventilating.  If you do some deep breathing while concentrating your mental focus on energizing your mind you will in fact increase your mental energy.  Exhale all of the air from your lungs and breath in allowing your stomach to expand.  If you breath using only your chest you are not using your full lung capacity and you are wasting energy by not breathing efficiently.  Take in a full breath and hold it for a one count and exhale.  Do this for ten breaths and resume normal breathing until you feel you can start again.  If you try to do more than ten breaths you may start to hyperventilate and get light headed. Do four cycles of ten breaths resting about thirty seconds between each cycle.  Now you are supercharged and ready to go.  Visualize or speak your image to yourself.  Try to spend a minute or two on it by either repeating it or seeing it.  Once you have done the visualization let it go and don't think about it again.  You have to trust that its there in your sub-awareness.  Its sub-awareness you will not know that it's there but it is.  Did you ever go on a train or car trip and see yourself traveling in your dreams when you go to bed that night?  Things you see are in your sub-awareness you just don't know what you think on that level.  The next step is to relax your mind to the point where you are not using your awareness while remaining awake.  Just like you can't dream unless you're asleep you can't direct the energy of your sub-awareness with without relaxing your awareness but you need to remain awake in order to maintain control.  When you do this you are meditating.  Meditating is not some far out thing its simply clearing your mind of awareness enough that sub-awareness takes over while retaining enough awareness to stay awake.  It's much simpler than that explanation sounds.  After you did your breathing, created your image and let it go, sit with your eyes closed.  Concentrate your mind on breathing in, now breathing out.  Think in and out, in and out...  Keep doing this until the thoughts of the day clear from your mind.  If you catch yourself thinking about anything don't let it bother you just go back to thinking about your breathing.  You don't have an on off switch on your mind.  You drift into the correct state of mind slowly.  If you daydream and allow cluttered thoughts to come in you will fall asleep.  If you drift off to sleep when you wake up realize that this was your mistake and try to correct it by not allowing yourself to think about anything but your breathing.  After awhile you will reach a point where its clear that your mind is relaxed enough were you no longer have to think about breathing.  At that point simply relax and feel the energy flowing and hear the subtle sounds that are around you.  If you find that you begin thinking again go back to concentrating on your breaths.  Do this for twenty minutes once or twice a day. The more often you do this the more power you create.

Stay Active

Even if you are 100% disabled and can no longer work you can still live an active life. You should make it a point to exercise to whatever capacity you can.  If you can walk, take a walk each day.  Walking is very good for you and helps to keep you fit and healthy.  Even if you can only walk a short distance make it part of your daily routine.  Try to increase the distance that you walk every day.  If you are unable to walk move and rotate your arms and legs and try to get a floor exercise routine from your health care provider.  It is important to try and maintain and improve your body.  I highly recommend that you do some form of resistance training.  Depending on your ability you can do this in the pool, using body weight exercises, with resistance tubing, machines or free weights.  Have your health care provider work with you on finding what is best for you.  Resistance training helps to maintain your muscles and the integrity of your joints, improves flexibility, helps to maintain bone density and makes you look and feel better.  Whats not to love!

Another aspect of staying active is to learn new skills.  Try to find something new that you can do to stay active that is within your physical capacity.  If you were a laborer and are now unable to do labor you may find something new that interests you even more.  You really need to stop looking at yourself as a common laborer.  Everyone is blessed with some unique talent that they can develop.  It is simply a matter of exploring your interests and finding what it is that sparks your creativity.  You may be able to obtain a grant to further your education.  I have done this and it was not easy to get my grant approved.  But I was persistent and eventually my persistence paid off.  If you are denied a grant use the knowledge of the staff at the organization to help you find other grant money.  If you learn to make a good appeal and come across as a nice person people will often try their best to help you find other grant money.  If you are seriously disabled I would be hesitant to take out a student loan.  You may find that you are not physically able to work at all and you will have a student loan to pay back.  However if your disability is moderate a student loan may be a good option.  There are some people that are too disabled to work and in that case I recommend that you find a creative outlet to keep your mind active.  If you have a flair for writing start a blog, write poetry or short stories.  You may have expert knowledge in your former trade and be able to write how to articles and sell them on the web.  I have done this and found free software called Open Office that allowed me to create pdf documents that can be easily downloaded to customers.  You have to be willing to explore the web a bit but often times there are free websites that allow you to publish on the web.  You may need to publish free articles but this is a good way to create a following.  Once you have a following you can create a website to sell your e-books.  If you are not a writer you may have a flare for art.  Once you have developed your skills you may be able to get a church or civic group to hold an exhibit and sale of your work.  My point is that if you are creative you can create opportunities to earn a living off of your talent.  But remember it will not be easy and you may have to work quite hard at getting people to buy your work product.  But don't let resistance stop you, if it were easy everyone would be doing it and there would be no place left for you.

Your contribution to society is not limited to earning a living.  You may like to council other disabled people, be active in a religion or volunteer for a civic group.  All of these things are important and somebody has to do them.  Your importance and value are always much greater than what you do to earn a living.  It is very important to have something to do and feel that you contribute in some way.  You need to explore what interests you and try to become a part of it.  Spiritual growth is larger than any religion.  You can be an atheist and still be a spiritual person.  It is a matter of fellowship and personal growth.  We all have a need to find exceptence and love.  There are so many ways to do this I could not possibly list them.  If you are not finding your thing ask a friend to help you come up with ideas.  Your thing is out there you need to keep a positive attitude and stay active. 

Cheerleaders

After 15 years of being disabled I have found that there are people that will help me out if I seek them out and provide them with a good appeal.  In business they call these type of people cheerleaders.  It is impossible to go it totally alone.  If you want to find work or receive medical care or disability benefits you need other people to work on your behalf.  The people that have helped out made a major impact in my life.  Even if they did nothing other than provide a kind word or two.  When you are disabled you draw people from extreme ends of the spectrum.  They either feel that you are faking it to get something that you don't deserve or they are sympathetic to your plight.  Appreciate the ones that help you out and never forget to thank them for their assistance.  Tempers tend to run high when you're in pain and at times you will act badly.  Remember to apologize to your supporters when you find that the pain caused you to lose your cool.  Well meaning people often misunderstand what you feel and can't understand why you can't do things right away when they request them. Take a moment to cool your temper and explain that you will do what they want when you feel better.  You have to remember people don't know your level of pain.  Cheerleaders are hard to come by you have to treat them with respect and kindness or you will lose their support.

One In A Million

Firefighters, wounded soldiers, cops, teachers, mom's and maybe even you all suffer from pain on a daily basis.  People discriminate, pain is an equal opportunity disabler.  My name is John Rutnik and I was in an auto accident in 1995 that left me with a very painful, permanent, partial, disability.  Using whatever criteria they use to assess this doctors have rated me as having a permanent disability.  I tell you that this is entirely subjective and that a person's ability is infinite regardless of his or her circumstances.  I am a Certified Personal Trainer, I exercise, lift weights and work.  I have every reason to sit and complain and do nothing, but I also have every reason not to do that.  People can act as anchors or as sails.  You can help to create opportunity or impede the effort of a person.  This includes the person who is disabled as much as the people that effect the laws that govern them.  By coming here and reading this you have become a sail.  You have decided to be one in a million.  I want to have one million people read this blog by my birthday on May 15.  I took on this project to show that chronic pain does not have to stop people dead in their tracks.  Your pain may keep you from living an ordinary life but it does not have to stop you from living an extraordinary life.  I have taken on this project to get this message started.  But I am limited to the network of people that I know.  You know people and they know people and if each person spends the few minutes it takes to copy and paste the link on to facebook and pass the message on to their contacts we can have the million people we need.  This costs nothing to do.  You can sit and complain about people getting paid for doing nothing or you can do something about it.  If you chose to do nothing than you have no right to complain.  In your hands you have the power to reach millions of people.  Spend just a few minutes of your time on the web to do something positive.  I would like to thank you for being a sail to the millions of people who suffer from chronic pain.