7 Steps to a Pain-Free Life: How to Rapidly Relieve Back, Neck, and Shoulder Pain 2nd edition

PREFACE
THE CHANCE DISCOVERY

I practice physiotherapy in New Zealand. In the different English spoken in the United States, this means I am a physical therapist. In 1956, I was only a few years into my career when a “Mr. Smith” came into the office. He complained of pain that extended from the right side of his lower back to his right knee. It was difficult for him to stand upright. He could bend forward, but he could not bend backward. For three weeks I treated him with heat and ultrasound. These were well-accepted therapeutic techniques then and remain so now. Nevertheless, Mr. Smith did not improve at all.

Then, late on a Wednesday, Mr. Smith came in for another appointment. I greeted him and said, “Go into that treatment room, please. Undress and then lie facedown on the table, and I’ll be in to see you.”

Mr. Smith complied—to the letter. I didn’t know it, but another physiotherapist had left the therapy table at an odd angle: the front was elevated 45 degrees. Mr. Smith lay facedown on that table, his pelvis and legs horizontal, his torso sharply elevated in a position called extension.

But I got a phone call, and then another physiotherapist needed to consult me. And so five minutes passed before I could attend to Mr. Smith. I knocked on his door, walked briskly in, and then froze. To my horror, I saw Mr. Smith lying in the bizarre position just described. Not only was the position odd; in 1956 the position was considered by the medical profession to be one that would cause damage to most any patient. I thought, “My God! What has he done? Has he made his injury much worse?”

“How are you doing, Mr. Smith?” I asked gingerly.

“It’s the best I’ve been,” he replied in sunny tones. “All the pain in the leg is gone.”

I was astounded and mightily relieved, but I wanted to know more. “How’s the low back?” I inquired.

“The funny thing is, the pain is a little worse, but it’s moved from the right side over to the center.”

“How are you tolerating that pain?”

“Better. It’s better when it’s in the middle there.”

Then he stood up.

He could do this without pain!

I asked him to try carefully to bend forward and backward. As you will recall, previously he could bend forward but not backward.

Now, after those five minutes in that strange position, he suddenly could bend backward with only minor pain.

His standing up did nothing to reverse the gains he had experienced on the table: there still was no pain in his leg, and the back pain remained centralized.

I began to recover my equilibrium. “Oh, yes, that’s fine,” I said, stumbling only a little. But I wanted to be sure no damage had been done. “Could you walk around a bit?” I asked him.

Mr. Smith walked around the treatment room. He walked quite normally. I was relieved. I felt that he had improved so much that we could ask for nothing more that day.

“Well, that’s long enough for today,” I said. “Come back tomorrow and we’ll try it again.”

The next day, Mr. Smith was back. And we repeated the same “treatment.” After Mr. Smith had maintained that odd position on the table for about five minutes, all his remaining symptoms were gone.

Mr. Smith taught me about extension. Learning from his remarkable recovery, I was able to develop exercises and postural-correction techniques involving extension and, later, flexion. On the following pages I will explain all these to you. Thanks to Mr. Smith, you are probably just one book away from being well on the road to recovery.

IMPORTANT: If you have severe back or neck pain or are having your first episode of back or neck pain, do not use this book. See a physician or other health care provider.

If you are now suffering from acute lower back pain, and have previously consulted a health care provider about your back pain, skip to Chapter 7, “Instructions for People with Acute Lower Back Pain.”

Similarly, if you have acute neck pain right now, and have previously consulted a health care provider about your neck pain, skip to Chapter 14, “Instructions for People with Acute Neck Pain.”

If you have back or neck pain that troubles you but is not acute, start with Chapter 1.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ROBIN MCKENZIE

To my patients who entrusted me with their care over the past forty years, I give my thanks and gratitude for teaching me all I know. I pass this on to you, the reader, and trust that you too can benefit.

CRAIG KUBEY

I am grateful to the many McKenzie-affiliated health practitioners in the United States who generously provided advice and other assistance in connection with this book. They include Dave Pleva, Vert Mooney, M.D., Ron Donelson, M.D., and McKenzie-credentialed physical therapists Todd Edelson, Gudrun Morgan, Aidan O’Connor, Mary Sheid, Gerald Stern, Mary Stern, and Mark Werneke. Thanks also to Stacey Lyon of the McKenzie Institute U.S.A., who helped to put me in touch with the preceding physical therapists. I also thank Alan Kubey for computer assistance and Karen Kubey for photography; I thank them as well as Maki Kubey and Elizabeth Kubey for putting up with my work on this book.

ALL OF US

We thank our literary agency, RLR Associates (Scott Gould, Jonathan Diamond, Lisa Dicker, Jennifer Unter, Manuela Barbuiani, Gretchen Topping, Jason White, et al.), for its diligent work on this project. Further, we express our appreciation to the editorial, production, and publicity people at Dutton (beginning with editor in chief Brian Tart; his assistant, Kara Howland; and copyeditor John Paine) for their extensive efforts to meet the extraordinary demands of the project that produced this book. At Plume, we’d like to thank the publisher of this new, dramatically expanded edition, editor in chief Phil Budnick, as well as Matthew Daddona, Jaya Miceli, Clare Ferraro, Norina Frabotta, and Katie Hurley. We also thank Jan McKenzie, former general manager of Spinal Publications New Zealand Ltd, who handled the New Zealand administrative side of producing the original edition with extraordinary intellect, effort, diligence, diplomacy, and humor. For this new edition, we thank Rachel Mason, Jan’s successor as general manager, who was enormously smart, quick, and helpful. We further acknowledge the precise and thorough work of previous general manager Jenny Bertelsen.

And we must mention our other friends in New Zealand:

We thank Stephen May, Rob Hughes, Ezequiel Gherscovici, Kate Allison, Carole Sweney, Rowley Watson, and Sue Lord for assistance with early work on the shoulder section. Regarding photographs in the book, we also thank our models Helen Macdonald, Brian McLean, and Gorman Ngai.

Further, we acknowledge the creative expertise and guidance provided by Rachel Mason at Spinal Publications (already thanked earlier in another connection).

We also thank Caroline Budge, Daniel Allean, Jono Smith, and istockphoto.com.

Finally, we acknowledge the thousands of patients of Robin McKenzie and his associates who unknowingly provided most of the resolutions for back, neck, and shoulder pain that are described in this book.

DEDICATIONS

Robin McKenzie’s dedication appears on page v. Craig Kubey dedicates this book to his wife, Maki.

INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST EDITION

Introductions to important books are usually written by experts or celebrities. Or, even better, by experts who are celebrities. But I am neither an expert nor a celebrity. I am an attorney who gave up a public service legal career to become a writer. But most...