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Has anyone ever heard of or tried the Alexander Technique?

I've heard of it, but didn't actually know what it involves so I've just read the Wikipedia article on it and now I still have no idea as the article is so badly written.

Isn't it something to do with teaching you not to slouch?

I think it is.   

I have been reading about the Alexander Technique after seeing a TV show recently .  I know a physio who didn't know a great deal about it before I mentioned it to him.  As he is a medical minded person, he tends to dismiss anything that isn't taught or practiced in a hospital though. 

Dont talk about back ache !!  :'( :'( :'( 7 days of pain so far ...

dont talk about 7 days of pain so far!!  i see youre 7 days and raise you 2 years :(  :(  :(

What bad luck - getting a pain in your back just after you manage to ship the pain in your neck off to Vegas. :)

I'll reraise your 2 years, and make it 11 years to go!

I suffered badly with back pain in my late 20s.
I was working at the bank at the time and they sent me to a private specialist.
He told me it's very common in men between 25 and 35 to suffer with their back for a couple of years. Taller guys will suffer more but we all get it.
Although you think "if it hurts this bad now, how bad will it be when I'm 60"  it does clear itself up, rather than stay and get progressively worse.
It's just a body change we all go through.

Before the specialist, the GP had sent me for a course of Physio where I was told head was positioned slightly forward of my shoulders rather than over them and trued to make me alter my posture. I looked around after that and noticed EVERYONES head is positioned slightly forward of their shoulders.  ::) saying that, the exercises did help relieve the pain

Apparently the average number of visits to a Physio for a single complaint is 5
The average number of trips to a chiropractor for a single complaint is 60
chiropractors are effective then ;)

It's very good - they help you adjust your position so you are wakling/standing/sitting in the correct position and not in the posture we have adapted over years of bad posture/computers etc.

It does feel wierd when you're doing it - but it works well, you will be standing with your feet in the correct position etc. It might help with back pain. If you are not going to the loo for a poo regularly it can cause lower back pain due to the pressure in the colon......just in case you needed to know that!

Apparently there used to be an old guy up by Perth that would manhandle you for 20 minutes and then send you on your way straight upright feeling great.

Mate told me his front garden was full of zimmer frames and walking sticks.  ;D

So true !!!  rotflmfao rotflmfao rotflmfao rotflmfao rotflmfao

Fold.   ;marks;

I have had an abnormal curve in my spine since I was a Kid.  When I was 17 I worsened this by stupidly crashing my bike and damaging two disks in my spine. I needed surgery a few times and had loads of physio. 

Most of the time my back is bearable, however I do get a lot of sciatica if I do certain things.  One sure way of getting weeks of pain is to lay flat of my stomach or reach forward off balance.  This is unavoidable sometimes though, for example dropping your wallet under the couch and being forced to reach for it.

For the last few nights I have slept on the floor using a foam mat and folded quilt.  This seems to work better than my fancy back mattress.  One concern I always have with the floor though is dust mites and rats.  I have an overly clean carpet and definitely don't have rats, however I have also read that you are never further than 20 feet from a rat and dust mites are living in every carpet regardless of how clean it is.  The floor doesn't offer the same psychological protection that a bed does.

Most of the time I find Doctors are clueless when it comes to back pain, they only seem to offer pain killers.  I don't like taking pills at the best of times, but apart from the negative health side to pills such as them being bad for the kidneys, I also hate the fact that they have to be taken 3 times daily. I have no idea why but that number seems wrong, I could understand two times or even perhaps four times, but not three times.  It just feels wrong when I close my eyes and think about it.

I have taken Monday and Tues next week off work to allow it to recover properly. 


Does anyone else find that when applying for jobs you tend to lie about having a back problem.  I always leave that bit out of any forms.  I was asked recently on an application form about back pain and I lied.  They are obviously not going to take someone who could potentially have a back problem at some point.

Hi Sark, sorry to hear about your back pain.  Unfortunately I am in a rush but i thought Dingbell's a good post and would advocate you looking further into the benefits of the Alexander Technique.  It is a whole new way of holding yourself - posture - which really does relieve tension and correct alignment and can have some real benefits to your whole body and demeanour because of the stress relief it can bring.  it does need learning and correcting poor techniques/habits we all succumb to, and takes a while to acquire - there are some good books on the subject and dvds though a good registered teacher would be the most beneficial, I guess, but unfortunately, like anything these days, it all costs.

I hope you may be able to find out more and wish you luck.  Back problems are very wearing.

All the best.

Also I think Pilates is supposed to be good for back pain.

Thanks Harmony.  Yep Dingdells post was really helpful,  ty.

It is a lot of money.  I used a new method last night while in bed ( bed on the floor ).  I focussed on the painfull area and imagined bright clear light passing through my body and dark cloudy light being zapped by the bright white light.  So far this has had no positive effect whatsoever , lol .

I don't know why but when I imagine pain it is always dark and when I imagine health, it is always bright.  I suspect this is a learned thing that has been passed on at some point from television, books , etc.

Thanks,  I know a girl that teaches that at a health centre.  I will ask her next time I see her

As a tallish person/ex-labourer/ex sports student/ full time sloucher i used to get back ache a lot but i was told that it was down to poor core strength. I am strong in the legs, shoulders and arms but never ever focused on core (middle part of body). So my advice to you would be to google "building core strength" or the likes and read up on a few exercises. The main ones i can safely recommend are sit ups with knees up and come up and touch you right elbow on your left knee, then back down and up with left elbow touching right knee and repeat 10-15 times in sets of 3. Will try and find a pic to show it more clearly and stick it on end. I personally use this and weights but i dont wanna give you stuff like that as it may worsen your past condition so get advice from ur physio/guy at the gym to check you can do them and also get taught how to carry out exercise safely.
You will be amazed at how much better your balance is after a while and also by building up your side abs which stretch round the back (abdominus obliques i think) should see you have less problems with posture and back pain.
Core strength is the secret of victory in juts about any sport, but dont tell anyone!!!

exercise 1- the one described above
http://www.shapefit.com/abs-exercises-cross-body-crunches.html

exercise 2- one i do as it can be as easy or as hard as you want but works well if you put effort in
http://www.shapefit.com/abs-exercises-alternate-heel-touchers.html

Theres loads of other ones you might wanna try on there aswell but focus on the obliques for back trouble but u mite wanna include some upper and lower ab stuff aswell or you may not wanna bother with any of this lol!!!!

http://www.pilatesfoundation.com/whatis.php

some more info here Sark.

Good Luck

King poker  -

"full time sloucher" ,   lol


Thanks mate.  I will try these.    I use one of those wimpy elastic things each day.  You know the elastic thing you pull in various ways for strength.   I don't know what it is called or how to describe it clearly .  It is elastic and pink  :D . 


Thanks for the site Tonji

no probs, hope it does the trick, will take time to builf up the muscle but i can 100% guarantee (not a guarantee) that it will solve your back problem.

And by the by, pilates it just basically the same idea of building core aswell!

thanks again


I just got caught by an old Lady.  I ordered a Chinese ( Vege curry + rice ) as I couldn't really be bothered cooking.  As I am walking slower than normal I was running a bit late to go and collect it.  I decided to take a short cut through a building site where new houses are being constructed. The building site runs along side the wall of an old Church hall.  It is always a risk to take this route as there is a crazy old Lady who nails you for twenty minutes and tells you about her Son the brain surgeon who lives in the States. I decided to gamble and took the 'Old Lady' route.  Unfortunately I got caught just as I was exiting the grounds of the building site,  I just didn't have the speed to get away from her and could see her visibly gaining on me.  I spent the next 25 minutes listening to a story I have heard over 1000 times.  I really have to get this back fixed soon.

Please - get caught again but with a video camera - I want to see this on Youtube   ;D

Seriously she tells the same story about 3000 times per day.   It basically boils down to the whole community being stupid and out of everyone her Son became a top doctor.  "Nobody is as clever as my Darren, he is smarter than the lot of you, one in a million he is"   :D .

After speaking with her for 20 minutes it is like reverse hypnosis, you walk away feeling like a worthless piece of crap  :D .  I have never met the guy but I have an image of the geezer in my mind,  he is 6 ft 2, has the looks of Brad Pitt and has a quick charming effortless wit. 

Last night I was at my dads staying.  When I went to bed I was in a lot of pain and took a few pain killers.  When I woke of this morning at 4am I tried to get up and lost feeling in my legs and my back started spasming.  I had never had a back spasm before, it is the most painful thing I have ever had in my life.  If someone offered me 100 million or to never feel pain like that agin, I would stay poor.  I lay on the floor for a while and then after an hour started making noise to awaken my dad. After a while he got up and called an amulence.

The Ambulence guys were great and helped me with the pain, morphine (sp?) is good stuff.  When I got to hopital I had some scans and they said my spine was no longer curved, it was straight as an arrow. By this time my feeling had returned to my legs and that was a relief.  The spasms caused my spine to straighten up,  I sat for a while and got some tamazapan and got taken home,  I feel spaced out right now because of the pain killers.  I have no idea why drug addicts like drugs, it is not a nice felling being spaced out.  I am going back on Monday for another scan and for physio.

Jeez... that sounds scary Sark, hope your alright

Your fancy mattress .  Is it one of these new NASA matresses ?  I know someone who specialises in those things, so if you've got any questions about that sort of thing, he might be able help .  I've also been told ( by other people ) that, if you sleep on your back, then a rolled up towel in the small of your back can help.  Might be worth a try  :dontask:

Get those thoughts of rats out of your mind.  That 20 feet thing is underground, in the sewers,  so unless you think they're coming up through the concrete foundations, I'm sure you'll be fine.

Also I think dust mites are in carpets, and mattresses alike.  They've been around since before you were born, and unless you suffer with bad allergies, then you shouldn't have a problem.  A lot of of what you hear about them is scare mongering. Generally you only need to worry about children with allergies.  I don't think they live too well in foam mattresses, btw.

It sounds like you're in a hellova state.  In this modern world, with all our medical knowledge, it doesn't seem right that you should have to suffer so much. 

Does this mean that last night essentially fixed your back?

If so, that's great news.

Thanks ,  I decided to switch plans and have cancelled my laptop order earlier, instead I am buying a matress that the back guy suggested at the hospital today.  So now I will have two mattresses that are for back problems, one that should work according to the guy and another that was useless with a fancy label on it that I never used.

I am not sure if it fixed the curve, but the xray and mri showed my spine as totally straight caused by repeated spasms.  When I got out of the ambulence two guys supported me and made me walk around the corridors to get my legs working . I still had my boxer shorts and two shirt on and the place was full of puzzled looking people looking at the idiot walking around in his underwear.  I was too out of it to be embarissed fortunately, lol.

Sorry you are going thru all this, Sark. All the very best for your tests on Monday and hope with the right treatment you will soon be feeling much better.

B+H