After abusing his back for years, Brownstein, a practicing physician, turned to conventional medicine for relief. Surgery did not reduce the pain and led to an ongoing use of strong painkillers. Frustrated, Brownstein embarked on his own self-healing journey. The knowledge he acquired from yoga, meditation, diet, relaxation, and deep breathing was channeled into a program he calls Back To Life. Unlike the quick fixes offered by conventional medicine, Brownstein's program works holistically and requires changing unhealthy life patterns. He introduces the reader to a stretching program and strengthening exercises (demonstrated in black-and-white photos), then covers stress management, nutrition, return to work, and the psycho-spiritual elements of recovery. This is a readable book, less blunt than John Sarno's groundbreaking Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection (Warner, 1991). Back pain sufferers disappointed by conventional approaches will want this. Recommended for consumer health collections.ALisa McCormick, Health Sciences Lib., Jewish Hosp., Cincinnati
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Owner Reviews, Ratings, Comments and Criticism
I would give this book 6 stars if I could. The yoga-based exercises Dr. Brownstein describes and illustrates so clearly saved me from the expense, pain, and risk of a lumbar laminectomy to remove a synovial cyst at the right L4/L5 facet joint. I didn't even know I had a back problem until I had an MRI this spring. All my symptoms were in my legs and hips, beginning with intermittent pain and numbness a few years ago, then progressing to fairly severe sciatica last fall. I was not incapacitated, but just moving around for daily activities was at best unpleasant. It was not fun to have severe cramps in my gluteus, along with sharp, shooting pains down the backs of my legs, and numbness in my toes and soles of my feet. I was advised that surgery was the only long-term solution. I attended Dean Ornish's Preventive Medicine Retreat in mid-April, 1999, where I met Dr. Lee Lipsenthal, and asked him if he had any knowledge about lumbar cysts. He strongly recommended Dr. Brownstein's book. Participants in the Retreat were given some instruction in Yoga, but Dr. Lipsenthal said Dr. Brownstein gave many more stretches aimed specifically at relieving back pain by developing better muscular conditioning. I consulted a surgeon on April 20, and scheduled a lumbar laminectomy for May 17. I bought a copy of Healing Back Pain Naturally on April 22, and began practicing the Yoga positions. On May 3, I was still having significant pain. I could not carry a box of newspapers weighing 25 to 30 pounds out to my curb for recycling without stopping to take the weight off my spine. I started doing the stretches twice a day for about 45 minutes each time. The following Sunday, May 9, I carried six 50-pound sacks of salt from my car to my water softener and poured them into the softener - WITH NO PAIN OR DISCOMFORT. I continued the twice-a-day regimen, and decided on May 11 to cancel the laminectomy. As a scientist, I find it difficult to believe that something so simple can have such a profound, immediate effect. But I am almost completely free of symptoms, and those I have left are mild and confined to my right leg. Nothing, including the program recommended in this book, will work for everyone. But if you have back problems, buy a copy, pay careful attention to the disclaimer at the beginning, consult your physician, and, if your physician approves, try Dr. Brownstein's recommendations, including those on diet and stress reduction (the latter are essentially the same as Dean Ornish's program). No other book I have read has so powerfully affected my life.
