MANY people would use this title without really knowing, just to make money, but that is not my motive here. I just feel a mral duty to pass on a small part of what I have learned since I turned 70, 5 years ago, drawing on unique sources of infrmatin and science.
In 2019, after a bad fall, my GP said: "Good news and bad news. Good news: you missed dying by a millimeter, and the dds were 10 to 1 you wuld die instanly. Bad news: for the rest of your life you will be incapacitated. Your life has changed. But 90% of the folks your age have the same or worse; they just don't like to talk about it." And indeed, I also got advice from a doctor who has credentials to be number one in the US, who also led me to expect limited mobility ever after. And my eyes started o blur away, a few years after catarct surgery. I certainly had read the best research on long lifetime (like the great heroic efforts of Steve Jobs and such). But then I decided to look deeper.
NO, I did not just dedicate my life to longevity (even though we do have a big character poster given to me at the Jade Palace Hotel of Beijing proclaiming that idea, with an incredible history). I thought: "I decided the spend 5% of my time and energy to understand and avoid covid. One can do a lot in well-focused 5%, with resources. I will do the same with aging."
There are short-term and easy measures, and longer ones.
Today, I will post what I sent a friend on back problems, which SEEMED permanent but which I reversed (at leas for a few years??):
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A friend wrote to another friend cc me: 2C%20cold%20weather%20can,exiting%20the%20spine%2C%20causing%20pain.
If you are not feeling better by now, I'd recommend asking your doctor to give you MRI orders, so it can be determined what's causing the pain and how to address it, e.g., via PT.
Paul could give you a recommendation of the miracle therapist who treated him.
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I replied:
At that time, I read SO much stuff. The links must be somewhere in my email and download files, but a quick search doesn't give them to me.
But: yes, exercise and glucosamine+condroiton (sulfonated, the usual odd formula).
Papers on back pain made it very clear it is DIVERSE. Very different for different people. Searching on bulging disk or herniated disc yields many serious sources.
MOST people either get better relatively soon on their own, but of the rest (like me), it is caused most often by a ruptured and/or slipped spinal disc. That is due to lack of the gel which usually fills the discs and keeps them right.
It is often misdiagnosed, and people often get suckered into paying for expensive and even damaging treatments even in reputable medical centers. Misdiagnosis because pinching a nerve in one place can cause pain elsewhere. That's part of neuroscience 101, for which I have lots of books.
The glucosamine plus chondroiton, UNLIKE other good joint compounds, can replenish the gel, but repositioning the disc is still a key issue. It took me years to sort out which exercises work. I don't really know the exact formula from exercise inputs to outcomes, but I will never forget the final step when it was suddenly good enough to restore me.
The final step was when I came to Lisa Huff, in Select Physical Therapy at 611 S Carlin Springs Road. In December, I was overwhelmed by guilt, that I had not done enough to thank her. So we stopped by her office, to try to find out how at least to send her $1000at least, as a kind of Christmas present and belated thank you. But she no longer works for that company. They said she moved to California, and they would try to get us an address, but that never happened.
I DO have the exercise files she sent, but those look like standard company files (added into the company web site). It was what she showed and explained in person that really worked.
I would be happy to say more, but here is a brief version.
I mostly just use walking and exercise in the shower to stay normal. BOTH are serious arts, much better if done right.
In the shower, there is some similarity to the ancient "cat cow" ideas Luda told me about years ago. But under hot water.. the (cat?) pushes solar plexus forward, head and feet back, to extremes, creating an arch from head to toe, held for 45 seconds.(That is how long I grind coffee, and can measure precisely without a watch, but more is fine.) That IS the most important by far. But also the (cow?) arches forward, doing curvature in the opposite direction, hands over legs. Rubbing up and down by the sides of the spine also helps a lot.
In my routine, I also stretch the leg of one side over the opposite knee, and stretch and wash a lot. (45 second is good for muscle exercise but also for soap, and I like to get both benefits at once, ALONG WITH tai qi or qi gong feelings and such).
Hope this helps.
Best regards, Paul
P.S. I also avoid general anesthesia with horror when there is any choice at all, now that I have seen some of the research and seen what happens to a lot of people.
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I am sorry I did not keep the link (at least on this laptop), but this morning I see a key part of the information:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17145758/
From many scientific sources I learned that the specific TYPE of (sulfated) glucosamine chondroitin that they sell in big bottles at Costco really works. That, plus well-designed exercise routines, brought me back to total normalcy.
The real problem is that our life demands figuring out the details of the science, just like my old job at NSF.
It is not easy. Most supplement sellers do not understand the science even of their own product!
(That is true of climate solutions as well!) But the science is there.
[From 2019 to then, tai qi and qi gong exercises also kept me alive under stressful conditions, like climbing Mount Fuji through rubble after a typhoon https://photos.app.goo.gl/rwkhfdcUN74jGrvx9 . That is a key PART of what my new shower ritual includes. Feel the qi, feel the soap, feel the hot water, and feel the stretch.]
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