With back pain, each patient, whether yoga student or not, arrives at the medical consultation within their own conceptual world. Into this fits their ideas of normal function, health and disease. These formulations may not necessarily be either coherent or consciously articulated. It may be assumed - by either patient or doctor - that the language used in their mutual interaction carries the same meaning for both parties, and this assumption increases the potential for skewed communication and misunderstandings. An example is the use of the term "chronic". In medical parlance this refers to the duration of a complaint, though many patients use this term as an index of severity.
Different paradigms underlie the various ways of viewing the human individual and health. Each health modality has a language and vocabulary unique to itself. The way in which a traditional practitioner of Chinese medicine, or teacher of Iyengar Yoga, formulates an understanding of a complaint may make little sense to an orthodox allopathic doctor, unless that doctor shares not just a common vocabulary, but also a common meaning which might be attributed to that vocabulary. The word "spleen", for example, conveys quite different meanings in traditional Chinese medicine compared with allopathic medicine. It is thus possible for a diagnostic formulation to be dismissed as nonsensical (e.g. "deficient spleen") if the words which are common to each system are endowed with radically different meanings for each practitioner.
It is interesting as pointed out in an article in Spine that "ancient Greeks used traction to treat low back pain". But studies on the use of traction have been of poor quality. Different types of traction devices have been reported and even today there are those providers who advocate "bloodless surgery" for an acute herniated disc by use of traction. In a recent Johns Hopkins Health Alerts: "but for now, traction alone seems not to improve pain, disability, or ability to return to work, although traction using body weight (autotraction) was moderately better than others". Some studies "even found that traction actually caused increases in pain and aggravated neurological signs".
There have also been some very good studies where traction on an Inversion Frame does give good results, so keep an open mind.
Glen Wood - The Yoga Teacher, dedicated to unlocking the Real Secrets of Back, Neck and Shoulder Pain.
