By Phil McCombs
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 6, 2000; Page C04

Never in a thousand years did I think I'd go to a chiropractor. I've never been one of those holistic "wellness" guys. Give me a bottle of pills, maybe--but basically I'll just gut it out.

Then the lower back pain hit.

Actually, it kind of crept up on me. I woke up one morning and there it was--my new friend, Mr. Pain. It was a stabbing pitchfork in the right side of my butt, extending down the leg a ways.

At first I figured to kill Mr. Pain with violent exercise. So on vacation I upped my daily swim to a mile, rebuilt the porch roof, cut trees, stacked rocks.

Mr. Pain grew stronger.

Back home, my family doc scanned the X-rays and spotted a closure in the lower spine "between L-5 and S-1." Probably, he said, a disk was bulging in there between the vertebrae, and a nerve was getting squeezed.

"Take these pills," he said cheerfully, writing a prescription for 1,000 milligrams a day of Naproxen, an anti-inflammatory. Stop swimming, he added, and come back in a couple of weeks. If it's not better, he'd refer me to the needles-and-knives folks.

Mr. Pain was starting to love this. The Naproxen held him off just enough so I could stagger into the office and try to work, but he was starting to run my life.

Worst was the doc's saying, "No more exercise!" For a stressed-out Washingtonian, this is like being put in a straitjacket. I've always managed stress by exercising.

Clearly, something had to change. I asked around about back pain, and was astonished at how many colleagues and friends suffer from it.

Studies show that, 30 years ago, lower back pain affected half the population. Now that number's up to 80 percent, the U.S. back surgery rate is the highest in the world, and the only disorder that causes more time lost from work is the common cold.

Friends had plenty of advice. Tom and George mentioned exercises their docs prescribed. Sandra got down on the floor and demonstrated. Laura is going under the knife. Henry mentioned John Sarno's "Mind Over Back Pain," which calls the malady an "inappropriate response to stress." They talked of neurosurgeons and osteopaths, acupuncture and pain clinics.

I decided to pray.

That may sound a little wacky, but it's worked pretty good for me over the years. "Help!" was the essence of the prayer--and, somehow, I got a sense of direction from that moment. The healing and recovery process began.

First, I identified key unresolved emotional issues in my life and addressed them directly. My idea was to reduce any stress to which Mr. Pain might be an "inappropriate response." I'm happy I did this.

Then, on the advice of a friend--and against my primitive macho instincts--I drove to Pinecrest Wellness Center in Annandale and placed myself in the care of chiropractor and applied kinesiologist Ronald A. Weinstein, a veritable maestro of snap, crackle and pop.

Chiropractors are specialists in neuromusculoskeletal conditions--nerves, muscles, spine. Through hands-on "spinal adjustments," they restore misaligned vertebrae to the proper position. Applied kinesiology is a system for evaluating body function, taking chemistry into account, too.

Pain, Weinstein explained, has a lot to do with body chemistry. It was possible that my high stress levels were flooding the old bod with pain-enhancing drugs! More than half the folks with bulging disks like mine suffer no pain.

"The whole premise is to get your body functioning better so it can heal itself," Weinstein said reassuringly. "We like to say that 'nature needs no help, just no interference.' Disks decay over time, maybe there's been some insult to the lower back, there may be postural weaknesses--but most of these issues the body clears up by itself with a little coaching."

With that, he gave me a physical exam (if you can't easily stand on one foot with your eyes closed, your brain is seriously disconnected from your body), and before I knew it Weinstein had me on the table in his consulting room.

Racked and cracked.

I felt better immediately that day--a teeny little bit better. But that was enough to bring Hope into my dreary relationship with Mr. Pain. Weinstein then put me on a serious regimen of exercises to rehabilitate the muscles that support the spine and, specifically, lower back functioning.

For a month, I trekked to Annandale three times a week for spinal adjustments and a workout in the little rehab gym he has. My original instinct had been right--that exercise is good--but building porch roofs was not the way to do it.

Each muscle group must be carefully developed in relation to others. The abs need to be strong, for example--but the back muscles need to be 30 percent stronger. Otherwise, the tension on the spine is out of whack.

During my month of intense rehab, I had a 50 percent reduction in pain and went off Naproxen. Today, I continue the careful workouts at my own YMCA, checking in with Weinstein from time to time.

Gradually, Mr. Pain is becoming less influential in my life.

"I see miracles all the time," says Weinstein. "My goal was for you to be pain-free that first day, but sometimes recovery does take time."

That's fine. I'm learning from all this, growing stronger and happier every day. I feel gratitude for Weinstein.

He's healing me.

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