F.F. asks about "low back pain" following trauma: "I have finally been diagnosed with a cause of my chronic pain from an accident on 4/10. I had been treated with drugs and therapy for protruding discs L4 and L5 discs. I had the first facet joint injection last week. The Dr. told me the joint does not open as it should due to the trauma. Is there any other treatment? Is this some thing that can go away?"

"Disc" problems and facet joint problems are two separate entities, though of course it is not uncommon to have both conditions overlapping. Indeed one might expect there often to be a joint problem accompanying any musculoskeletal pain.

Was the accident 4th Oct or 10th April? As a matter of semantics: "chronic" usually means over six months. "acute" is recent, and subacute is in between recent and six months. (Excuse the pedantry.)

Please take a look at my papers on low back pain and on chronic pain.

"Is this some thing that can go away?" Yes! But you have to find the right solutions.

"Is there any other treatment?" There are many. That’s part of the problem - finding out what’s right for you. Take a look at dowsing, divining and diagnosis.

It is fairly standard in orthodox pain management to give a lot of attention to behavioral and psychological strategies, and these are worth pursuing. A variant on this is very interesting work with meditation and yoga in the managements of pain. I think that work is associate with a man called Kabat-Zind but I must have the name wrong as I can’t trace it on-line. I’ll look for this as it is a very good approach to intractable (untreatable) pain.

In the orthodox but innovative tertiary pain management and investigation unit that I belong to a lot of what we do is to try and sort out how much of the pain is psychological, how much is neurological and is it central or peripheral, and how much is in the peripheral tissues, and then design (orthodox) treatment programs. Where there is a large "psychological" component surgery is usually very inappropriate.

In my own practice I work with acupuncture, homeopathy, herbs, chiropractic, and CranioSacral Therapy (and you will find articles on these several treatments on my site). Alexander Technique and Feldenkrais are also gentle non-invasive approaches that can sometimes work wonders.

If you have specific questions please ask. Meanwhile, let me wish you luck with finding the solution to your pain.