Does it work on knees? This getting old business is getting old...

If it's The Original, how can it be The II? Hope you feel much better by tomorrow!

I hurt my lower back in May. Not sure how but I did. My doctor's only remedy was to take pills. That's not my way, for it only masks the symptoms and doesn't actually get at the root cause.

Things are better now but not perfect. I'm considering alternative therapy and you should too, Amy. Get better soon!

Ice, baby ice! First as a compress on your neck, and then crush some mint into the ice and make a mojito.

Amy find a massuse who can do 'trigger point'

The Hawaiians seem to have made version 1 out of wood. Amazon.com sells a synthetic version as a "lomi stick," but antique originals go for prices that Santa Monica hippies can only dream of charging. It apparently was used to aid digestion as well.

It apparently was used to aid digestion as well.

Oh, please. Did they stick it down their throats to pull out all the sprouts?

And thanks, luj, but I think this thing has solved it/is solving it -- and I'm a little under the financial weather here, thanks to newspapers going out of business, so the do-it-yourself tool is a pretty great thing. This actually helps - feels great, too.

The other massage was a gift from a friend when I was finishing my book. I saved it for a time like this -- to no avail!

and Gregg is too far away to help in this? Better learn that boy some manners...

Is there a massage school in your area? Students are requried to preform so many student clinic hours before they graduate and they usually sell off the students practice time cheap.

They have a weekend student clinic about 30 miles from my house, $25 can get you 3 massages easy, on a day where no alot of people show up you can get twice that easy

and Gregg is too far away to help in this? Better learn that boy some manners...

He actually rubbed my back and neck for quite a while when we got home from dinner.

Thanks, luj. This weird thing does seem to be working! I really recommend it.

My neighbor gave me some great advice once for back and neck issues (cheap too). Take two tennis balls and duct tape them together tight (so they will still roll...then lay down on the floor on your back with them underneath and roll them on your back up and down (using your legs). You can also do this with one tennis ball but its a bit more painful.

It works!

Amy, don't do drugs. Wear weird slippers instead.

Now, all sensible people enjoy the gentle boost of gragarity and enthusiasm that comes from an occasional dose of Ritalin... But it's good that you wrote all that stuff in one single post, because after listening to Dr. Drew a few years ago, I'm convinced that one of the most common linkages you'll find in human fate is that between back pain and drug abuse (usually opiates but sometimes alcohol and other things).

All people with back pain aren't drug abusers, but almost all drug addicts have back pain. It's how the brain commands its host to feed the misery machine. The spine is part of the brain, of course, and eagerly complicit.... "Pain? Uh, sure... Yeah, that's the ticket... I'm in pain! Medicate me!"

The one time I worked up close 'n personal with a heroin addict, he complained about his back all summer. (I didn't put this together until years later.) He was a slender, 26yo TV producer, not a 54yo longshoreman with a distended panis.

So when someone says "My achin' back", but they're not a football player or an accident victim or a warehouse worker, my first thought is "How much private time is this person making in their life, and what are they doing with it? Might this be a mechanism by which a trouble soul makes room for misconduct?"

Without intense, competent and professional medical supervision, I think medicating back pain is a really bad way to go.

On the other hand, massages seem unpleasant too. I just don't like the idea of paying people to touch my body. I'd always be worried that the guy would like me and try to surprise me with a happy ending at no charge, and it would be awkward.

Besides, I think almost everything we call "stiff neck" is a short-term head cold... It ain't the geometry of the bedding or anything like that, it's just a bug. Square meals, dress warmly, deep sleep, no-drinky/no-smoky and it'll go away soon.

Take two tennis balls and duct tape them together tight (so they will still roll...then lay down on the floor on your back with them underneath and roll them on your back up and down (using your legs).

Thanks - my little sister Caroline actually gave me a styrofoam thing to roll on - usually is great, cracks my back, but hasn't helped this.

Will check out the "weird slippers."

Thanks for all the suggestions!

The rat slippers are cool!

Don't forget these kids.

Crid, and you call Brian an a-hole, all people with back pain are drug abusers, what a fantastic theory. I have sat back and watched your holier than thee attacks for months, but this one needs a reply. You sir are an asshole

> all people with back pain are drug
> abusers, what a fantastic theory.

You missed this part: "All people with back pain aren't drug abusers."

All people with back pain aren't drug abusers, but almost all drug addicts have back pain...

Because anectdote + s = data!!

Golly you guys, sorry to have touched a nerve here. If you have evidence of patterns that addicts don't suffer disproportionate back pain, then by all means speak up. This is a place for sharing: Please begin.

>> You sir are an asshole.

As only Cameron could deliver that line....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxKaYcQFP3Q

Which is worse? Choose one:

[___] Having your cake left out in the rain.

[_X_] Having your cheese left out in the wind.

Amy - ICE for two days when something like this happens, then heat. You have to bring the swelling down first, and if it hurts like you describe, the tissue's inflamed. Heat is the mistake people make. Feel better. Also, don't dismiss me out of hand, but sometimes having your feet rubbed or your hip flexors can help. When my neck is out of whack it shows up in my back. My hips? In my neck.

English Bob doing Donna Summer covers? Well, kid, I guess we all got it comin'.

Golly you guys, sorry to have touched a nerve here. If you have evidence of patterns that addicts don't suffer disproportionate back pain, then by all means speak up. This is a place for sharing: Please begin.

I'm just mocking that your claim is based on a logical fallacy. You're the one making the affirmative argument. You back it up.

"Affirmative argument"? You're looking too hard for a fistfight, Little One: You've come to the church picnic. "Anecdote" covered it precisely... I believe –sincerely, but in a non-documented, casually observed, and conversational way– that back pain in People of Pharmacological Enthusiasm (PPE's hereafter) has a distinctive natural history from that of other sufferers. It's not just the work associate mentioned earlier; I've seen others gripe about back pain only during times when they were partying-too-hearty, yet walking tall and feeling strong after they'd cleaned up following a messy divorce or period of unemployment or grieving or whatnot.

(Notice that I didn't say that everyone in a wheelchair used to shoot up with William S Burrows, or that everyone on crutches used to smoke crack with Pryor.)

What can you do with this putative insight? Well, you have options!

Option 1: Do nothing.

Option 2: Challenge this shallowly-held belief with a series of anecdotes of your own.

Option 3: Bear it silently in mind as you move through the world collecting your own observations of PPE's, as you would in any case.

The knobby thing should be bundled with this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Trigger-Workbook-Pressure-Positive-Company/dp/B00120ZMK0/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=hpc&qid=1251743276&sr=1-3

It shows you where the knots are so that they can be worked out and so that the pain doesn't come back.

-Julie