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That Braced Feeling
Written by Sean on Wednesday, June 24, 2009
My back has been quite sore for a long time. This is due, as I’ve mentionned mentionned on the site before, in great part to poor posture. The muscles are sore, but it also feels like the "bones" are sore. I often have to remind myself throughout the day to sit up straight, to realign my back. Last night, I vividly remembered the feeling of wearing a back brace.
I’ve had several back brace, but two in particular that held my back straight and held tightly in place. I first had a nice Milwaukee brace. It held me tight around the hips, and the uprights pushed my back up straight, with the neckring ensuring my head wouldn’t go forward. The whole thing kept my back aligned, and my head’s weight carried by the bones more than by the muscles. Of course, I didn’t officialy need a brace like that. But it helped. It felt good both physically and emotionally. Later, I had a clamshell TLSO, which was custom made. It also held my back rather straight.
It was good to wear these braces. I’ve now outgrown them. I can’t wear those braces.
So my back gets sore, I remind myself to stretch my spine, to tuck my chin in a bit, to push my shoulders back. All these reduce the pain in the back. And it’s good.
But I miss my braces. I miss that feeling. Forcing myself to hold the right posture helps with physical pain, yeah. But the brace gave a feeling of emotional support as well. I wish I could afford a new one. <shrug>
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1 On 25 June, 2009, Chloe said:
My experience parallels yours in finding that a back brace not only does quite a lot for back pain, but also provides substantial emotional comfort. It makes me ponder the question as to whether there is or is not a link with BIID.
It would kinda seem to make sense that those with paraplegic manifestation of BIID might find some comfort in a back brace, since there is supposed to be something wrong with our backs. How many others of us experience this?
On the other hand, I don’t seem to experience BIID relief with a back brace. This is entirely different from what happens when I wear a leg brace. Moreover I have a similar feeling of comfort when I wear a neck brace as I do wearing a back brace. The neck brace is clearly more remote from my BIID. Is there a relation at all? I don’t know.
At my last GP visit she said that I have pretty bad posture, which may be contributing to my back pain. On the other hand my back pain has lessened substantially in the last few weeks, but I don’t think my posture has changed in the slightest.
After two and a half years of wearing a back brace most of the time, I can honestly say that I have not missed it in the last weeks. Maybe I already got as much emotional comfort from a back brace as I’m ever going to get. It wouldn’t bother me to start wearing it again though.
Another thing is that I’m wearing a left leg brace around sixty hours per week. Perhaps that is not only effectively treating my BIID, but also providing a similar kind of emotional comfort to a back brace. Or is it just the comfort derived from my BIID being treated?
It seems so hard to tease all these things apart. Sean and I appear to have rather similar feelings about a back brace. I’d be interested to know how many others do or do not feel this way.