I’m beginning to think that no one actually has any idea of how to permanently treat lower back pain, but I’m not about to say anything, because of the massages.

I’ve been going to physical therapy since the beginning of the summer because my back went out. Backs go out. This is very common, apparently. This is how it works: If you sit at a desk for years and years and almost never go out, eventually your back gets sick of waiting and goes out without you. And it doesn’t leave you with a sitter or anything. In fact, you can barely sit. I couldn’t sit for any extended period of time, which might sound great, but I couldn’t exactly stand for longer than the average person either. So I was mostly always looking for places to lie down.

But what do I do if I want to work?

So I bought a back pillow, which would hopefully allow me to sit longer, so I could recreate the conditions that caused me to have a bad back in the first place. The pillow actually allowed me to sit in the car for eight hours to go to my brother’s wedding, which he considerately made in Toronto so that he and his kallah could spend most of their first week of marriage driving home and learning about each other’s noshing habits, as well as their differing minhagim on how often to stop the car. Another cool feature of the pillow was that it allows me to reserve seats at simchas.

That’s not all I’ve tried. I’ve also tried all of the home remedies, such as making noises when I get up and down. But my main effort to get better has been going to physical therapy a couple of times a week for several months now. In fact, I’ve been going for so long that my original therapist retired or something and was replaced by a different therapist who totally scrapped everything the first guy was doing and is having me do brand new stretches. Apparently, the old doctor had me on something called “The McKenzie Method” of back healing, whereas the new doctor has me on something called “Maitland Mobilizations.” (Alliteration is the cornerstone of physical therapy.)

The McKenzie Method basically stretches you backward, the theory being that if it hurts to bend forward and pick things off the floor, then maybe, with enough stretches, you can bend backwards and pick things up off the floor. This leads to some awkwardness in shul during Modim, but when you’re done with therapy, you could walk out of a bathroom stall without touching the door handle. Whereas Maitland Mobilizations are… Well, I’m not actually sure what they are, but I do know that, while the first therapist gave me massages that felt good, the second one feels like he’s opening stubborn pickle jars on my back. The top half of my back, which isn’t even where the pain was, at least until he started.

At some point, I finally decided to say something during one of the “massages,” to make sure the hurting was on purpose and that he wasn’t just a terrible masseur.

I asked, “You know you’re hurting me, right?”

And he said, “Yeah. When this doesn’t hurt anymore, we’re done.”

He then went into a long explanation about how he wants to loosen the top half of my back, because apparently now, thanks to the McKenzie Method, my lower half is too flexible compared to my upper half. He might have gone into more detail, but I think I passed out.

And those aren’t even the only two methods. After I ran my original column about back pain, I got a lot of concerned letters from fans that had suggestions, every single one of which conflicted with the others. It turns out that the back pain community is very vocal. (Yes, there’s a back pain community. They get together once a week to sit in a circle and complain about the chairs.)

One fan from Monsey wrote in to say that he had back pain for seven years, and that I should see an orthopedist and have him prescribe medication. He also complained about a doctor who offered to apply pain to another part of his body to distract him from its current pain. And then, I assume, apply a third pain to make him forget about the second pain, and so on. Though I do like how they say “apply pain,” like you need a medical degree to punch someone in the arm.

Another reader, J.R., wrote in to say that I should try a homeopathic cream called “Arnica.” (Homeopathy is a medical philosophy based on the idea that the body has the ability to heal itself, as long as you apply cream.)

Another reader recommended acupuncture. Acupuncture is the Chinese process of seeing how many needles you can stick into a patient before somebody walks in and asks what on earth is going on here.

My point, though, is that no one agrees on how to treat this problem, but they all agree that everyone else’s methods might actually make it worse. Even my own two therapists don’t agree. So I’m starting to think that there is no right way that works for everyone. Each way works for one person and that’s it. So I wish everyone would get off their high horse about this. Then we’d all walk funny.

By Mordechai Schmutter

 Mordechai Schmutter is a freelance writer and a humor columnist for Hamodia, The Jewish Press and Aish.com, among others. He also has five books out and does stand-up comedy. You can contact him at [email protected].