Back Pain In Riders
The most common human pain issue people contact me for is back pain, usually attributed by my clients to riding activities. (These aren't always valid assumptions, however.) Back pain is especially troublesome to horse people, as it can surely rob anyone of the pleasure of riding and working with horses.
Obviously, it's true that riding presents special challenges to a rider's back. In dressage, many movements require tucking the pelvis anteriorly under the body, thrusting it forward for significant periods of time. This weight is borne on the coccyx, or tailbone, rather than their seat bones. This can also strain and stretch lower back ligaments.
Dressage riders also often use exaggerated pelvic motions to urge the horse to extend, which can cause the abdominal muscles to become fatigued. The back muscles then tighten as they try to hold the back in alignment without the aid of abdominal muscles, resulting in back pain. The impact of the pelvis against the front of the saddle also often jars the rider's body, weakening the spinal discs, especially the bottom disc at L5/S1, between the lumbar spine and the pelvis. This can eventually lead to ruptured discs.
Hunter, jumper, and event riders have their own challenges, especially those involving launching a 1,200 pound horse over an obstacle. Hyperflexion and hyperextension of whiplash, muscle spasms, and disc damage can result from misjudging distances.
Routine concussive forces experienced by these riders also tend to accumulate wear and tear on the joints of the spine, and stretch and loosen the anterior longitudinal ligaments. Damaged ligaments and weakened discs are commonly found in hunter seat riders, especially in the neck and lower back regions.
Having acknowledged these and other problems common to riders, it's important to note that back pain is common across the entire population, not just those who ride. Back pain is one of the most common medical problems in industrialized countries. Over 90 percent of those in the US seek help for back pain at some point, and roughly half of working age people in any given year suffer from it. One should therefore not be too quick to blame back problems on riding activities, nor take actions based solely on those assumptions. There may be much more going on having little to do with riding.
I'm referring in particular to the work of Dr. John Sarno, professor of Rehabilitation Medicine at the New York School of Medicine. His books, especially Healing Back Pain, should be required reading for anyone with a troublesome back, and his work has informed much of how I apply Reiki to pain issues.
His books explain why what modern medicine thinks it understands about back pain often does not square with reality. For example, pain might be attributed to degenerative arthritic changes at the lower end of the spine, but the patient might have pain in places that have nothing to do with structures in that area. Or, someone might have a lumbar disc herniated to the right, but have pain in the left leg. This no doubt is one reason that the outcomes of surgeries for back pain are so unpredictable.
Looking into this further, Dr. Sarno discovered that 88 percent of his patients with back pain had histories of problems related to tension: tension or migraine headaches, heartburn, hiatus hernia, colitis, spastic colon, irritable bowel syndrome, eczema, and so forth, all of which are strongly suspected of being related to tension. This led him to propose that some if not most back pain might be related to back muscles held in a chronic state of tension, triggered often by subconscious emotional stress, rather than structural injuries. His treatments based on this theory were quite successful. Please read his book Healing Back Pain for further details.
Reiki is very effective at easing stress and tension, as has been borne out by much medical research, which is likely one reason Reiki can help to reduce pain in both horses and humans. Since we really know very little about the science of Reiki, there may of course be other things going on that we don't yet understand, but this undoubtedly has much to do with it.
This approach is relieving pain is meant to complement, not replace, conventional ways of addressing back pain. Of course, none of the above should be considered medical advice on my part. You should see your licensed physician for any and all issues involving pain before contacting me for a session.
