A salutary warning because it's a subject close to my . . . well, bottom, really.
Bloody Nora, I've rambled again, but if you skip the bulk, the most important point I'll say now.
After all the years of the below - a major downer for my retirement years - I was told about an estate agent that had terrible back pain - it was such a burden that he'd sneak a rest on client's beds if they were out. He was, by the most incredible luck, diagnosed with Coeliac disease. When he went on the diet, his back pain went away.
I'm convinced part of my pain was a kind of feeling ill in the lumbar region. It was just somehow different and varied day to day. When I learned this I was hours away from the surgery I'd begged for for years. I went both routes and my life changed.
The message is: proper diagnosis. Having said this, a bad 'slipped disc' (usually the membrane around a facet joint jambing its movement) can be relieved in five minutes. That's when manipulation can be a godsend.
Flying was a problem as my love of sporty cars just added to the pounding I was giving my back, and the temptation to go to the comforts of home from short haul flights was all too great. Such a waste of life.
Years of judo probably didn't help as I got thrown a lot.
The worst was probably a love of DIY. I started the day running, then worked on the house - some seriously heavy jobs - and weight lifting before my shower. For years and years and years. One day, c 59 years old, I had a pain down my leg. That was the beginning of well over a decade of back misery.
early imaging and treatment.
The nearest I came to any one
really diagnosing my problems before pulling me about was after the usual trail of respected but not very scientific osteopaths. They ALL launched into the same routine. 'Qualified' people? I suppose. One, the last, was in a house full of 'Doctors' in a nearby town. (they were mostly trained in the US.) I got a misty x-ray showing spurs followed by the usual pummelling. I was always treated to a display of how supple the monosyllabic 'Doctor' was. He seemed incapable of clear communication but stripped off his T shirt and writhed about proudly. His mother had clearly mated with a snake. An especially supple snake. They then billed me 8 quid for 50p's worth of calcium - and lost a client.
I then took a 'retirement job' with a lovely little airline in Newcastle and Norwich. A lot of driving. The pain built up over a couple of years until one day one of my lovely girls grabbed my flight bag and carried it for me. I had to do something. I did, and wished I hadn't. The airline went broke after 9/11 and despite being very sorry for my colleagues, I gave a sigh of relief. However, during that time I'd used part of my contract terms to go to a spinal surgeon. LSS, I had some expensive stuff injected under general aesthetic. Bill was thousands. It did nothing whatsoever. The company in it's death-throws hadn't paid the insurance premium.
Years of DIY in Texas was achieved by pushing up on my workbench and pressing the edge into a point just above my nuts. The clunking was very satisfying and achieved every bit as much as a 100 quid session with one of the 'Doctors'. I might do that 10 times a day.
Funny thing: of my tall friends, 6' 3" ish, I was the shortest at 6' even. I'm now by far the tallest not having changed much. May be chance but just perhaps, hundreds, possibly thousands, of stretches may have pumped a little life into the drying cores of my discs. Even now, every day during my walks, I find a seaside railing that's just the right height and press up on that several times hanging most of my weight from my shoulders. Who knows.