If your pain too severe
If your back pain is so severe that it is impossible for you to perform any of the exercises or if your pain is becoming intolerable, seek advice from your family physician. Certain over-the-counter (OTC) medications, such as aspirin and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), one of the best known of which is ibuprofen (found under brand names such as Advil and also available as a less expensive generic drug), may be necessary to provide some relief from pain. Aspirin and other OTC NSAIDs have been found to be highly effective for reducing acute back pain and have fewer side effects than some common prescription drugs. Both aspirin and other NSAIDs have been recommended by the United States federal government’s Agency for Health Care Policy and Research.
If your pain is not severe enough to force you to rest in bed, and if you are able to continue with some of your daily activities in spite of your pain, perform Exercises 1 through 3: Lying Facedown, Lying Facedown in Extension, and Extension in Lying.
The aim in performing Exercises 1 through 3 is to restore the lordosis to the fullest possible extent; then we must maintain it by paying careful attention, at all times during the first week, to both posture and movements. Avoid rounded postures that occur when bending or sitting slouched, and in fact sit as little as possible. Therefore, by avoiding flexion, you remove the cause of any further distortion within the joint, and you allow healing to occur. (Remember the example of bending the finger? And the slippery bar of soap?)
When you begin Exercise 3, at first you may experience an increase in pain in the lower back. But as you repeat the exercise, the pain should gradually decrease so that there is significant improvement within a few sessions. The pain may also become more localized in the center of the back (this is the process of centralization, discussed in a previous chapter). This is desirable, as is any movement of pain from the legs and buttocks toward the middle of the back. In time, the pain should disappear and be replaced by a feeling of strain or stiffness, which is more tolerable.
