In my earlier blog, Misunderstanding the pain, I explained how pain in any part of the body doesn’t mean that only that part of the body is disturbed. You are just getting indication from the weakest link. In this blog I will explain the relation between physical and physiological body from a unique problem I went through. Apart from this I got an insight in to how modern medicine and Ayurveda looks at the same problem.
One day after an intense Yoga practice I got a severe back pain. This was around a year back and I was ignorantly testing limits everyday. Pain had become part of my life and I had learnt to live with the pain. But this time the pain was something unusual. I ignored it for a day but it started becoming worst. Most of the stretch pain will subside with sufficient rest but this was increasing (I explained about pains during Yoga practice in my earlier blog, Yoga teacher pushes...Good or bad?). On day two I rushed immediately to an allopathic doctor. He said that my muscles have gone for spasm and I need to take rest for a week. Bed rest is the first few words modern medicine speaks when they hear back pain. So, next time you visit allopathic doctor only after taking sufficient bed rest so that you can rule out the obvious response :)
Previous related blogs
Misunderstanding the pain
After two days my problem worsened and on top of that I started developing severe constipation[1] problems. Slight constipation was there even before but it was not causing any problem. This time as pain never subsided I went to an Ayurvedic doctor. Somehow I believe in Ayurveda for treating such common and chronic problems. Ayurvedic doctor said because of constipation I have developed back pain. He said when bowel movement becomes difficult it starts putting extra load on the surrounding muscles which was the cause of back pain. This was a thought provoking explanation and made me think. I started analyzing my problem in greater detail.
After much research and self study I understood the problem. When we overstretch a muscle it causes muscle spasm[2]. Spasm means sudden contraction of muscle fibers to avoid being overstretched. This is more like a natural defense mechanism of our body. When back muscles goes for spasm they lose their flexibility or their rhythm. Back muscle rhythm is important to cause movement inside your intestine. Back muscle contraction and relaxation which happens even during walking, running etc creates rhythmic contraction and relaxation in our intestine. This movement is essential to move food inside our intestine. When this rhythm is affected it leads to constipation. Constipation will put load on back muscles which are already compressed due to spasm thus further increasing the pain. This cycle goes on and pain shoots up exponentially.
Constipation has many causes and what I experienced is one of the causes which gave me this understanding. This example clearly shows how our physical body is connected with our physiological functions. When we work on our physical body in Yoga practice we are working to release tension or contraction in our muscles which is influencing our physiological organs and its function. Wondering what I did? I thought of targeting the problem from both sides and I took both medicine :)
In my future blogs I would logically explain how Yoga practice will influence you at a much deeper levels such as mental, intellectual and energetic. I hope you enjoyed reading it.
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References
[1] http://www.webmd.com/digestive-disorders/digestive-diseases-constipation
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spasm
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spasm
Misunderstanding the pain
Hello Vinay,
ReplyDeleteNice one... Keep writing which is helpful to all of us.
-Vani
Very good explanation. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThank you Vani and Aishwarya :)
ReplyDeleteVery useful article.
ReplyDeleteWould like to read such more articles. :P
Thanks
Thank you Samichi :)
ReplyDeleteSorry to comment but in fact its reality .vinay if it is back pain from what may be ure doing not scientifically may be? why i am saying is this because do u know what is back pain and three types of back? uppe r , middle and lower and do u know which back get hurts from which of asanas or what is the body alignment is about ?can u examine if a person come to ure yoga class his back means his upper or middle or lower is not in a postion seeing his movts if so ure in a right path or else ure injuring ure students sorry to say it frankly 70percent yoga gurus are not medically illiterates hence my question how do u withoutproper knowledge of anatomy and kinesology can apply yoga to ure students which only leads to injury .please note injury to back can happen because of your misalignment of hips or saccrum or coccyx .This can happen if ure yoga postures are not proper or anatogonist postures are not done properly for example if u do trikonasana ure both hips are in danger of getting hurt because they are both in opposite direction hence hips is imbalanced hence its antagonist should be done orelse ure hurting ure hips hence next ure knees or ure upper back .vinay dont feel i am trying to degrade yoga gurus or any one but my objective is to learn scientific yoga with proper discetion of each asanas with their muscle , ligaments , joints and bone position in relation to the posture which will give u free non injurious yoga practice.bye it s rukdent@gmail.com
ReplyDeleteHi Rukdent,
DeleteObjective of the blog was just to explain how physical body is connected to physiological system by taking an example. Focus is not to discuss in detail about back pain. I do understand anatomy, its application in Yoga and all the things you are saying but that does not add any thing to the content. I will explain those things in future blogs as it seems relevant. Please provide comment which will be directly related to the argument or topic under discussion. This would help a lot to keep the quality of blog post without confusing the readers.