6 Things I Wish People Knew About Lower Back Pain

When Rick Mathes began experiencing lower back pain in high school, he had no idea that it would lead to a career helping people manage pain.

But a catastrophic car wreck in 1992 intensified that back pain and altered the course of his life.

“That accident put me from a normal life and feeling pretty good to like a level of pain that was difficult to describe,” says Rick, who is now 61 and runs a postural therapy exercise-based clinic in Texas.

Rick’s passion for pain management stemmed from learning to deal with his own pain. Through years of trial and error, he’s found what works best for him. 

Here are six things he wishes people knew about lower back pain. 

1. The injury may be worse than you think

Lower back pain is common, and the causes can vary. 

In Rick’s case, the car accident fractured all of his lumbar vertebrae. But he didn’t know this immediately, because the fractures didn’t show up on an X-ray.

“I was walking around with a back that was broken in five places,” he says. His pain was beyond a 1-to-10 scale, he says.

He tried different forms of physical therapy to treat the pain. He was going five or six times a week for almost 2 years.

“At that point, I went from passive pain and couldn’t really do anything to significant, constant pain and could do a little more,” he recalls.

At the time, Rick had a job in tech, and even sitting was excruciating. It wasn’t until 6 years after the accident that he started to get some answers.

He had an MRI scan that revealed he had a herniated disc and a bulging disc in his lumbar spine. The neurosurgeon recommended two-level fusion. But Rick didn’t want to get spine surgery. 

2. Ask questions

Rick stresses the importance of finding a healthcare provider who will partner with you to work toward getting relief.

“The most important question we can ask of any doctor or health professional is ‘Why?’” he says. Whether the treatment being recommended is an injection or surgery, Rick says you should keep asking questions until you get answers that satisfy you. This can help ensure you are dealing with lower back pain in the best way for you. 

3. Sometimes you have to try many methods 

In Rick’s quest to avoid going on disability, he tried various methods to treat his lower back pain. Since his pain was from an injury, his experience was arduous. He tried acupuncture, chiropractic therapy, and radiofrequency neurotomy. But the pain persisted. 

“You know, I did everything I could possibly find,” he says. “And, at best, it didn’t help me feel any better. And some of them made me feel worse.”

There is no one-size-fits-all solution, he says. Depending on the cause of your lower back pain, your body may have different responses to different treatment methods. 

4. You know your body best

Eventually, Rick started making some progress with physical therapy, but he continued his search for solutions. He understood that he knew his pain better than anyone else did. 

“The most important health consultation anyone can have is with themselves,” he says.

While searching for ways to avoid surgery, he came across a posture-based approach to treating chronic pain. Rick began looking further into posture therapy. At his first appointment, he was told that his spine was out of position.

Rick had never considered working on bringing his body back into postural balance. So he started stretching and doing other exercises to help address his imbalance.

5. Get to the root of the problem

Rick knows there is a time and a place for using surgery to treat back pain. But he personally saw surgery as a last resort.

He says it was important for him to get to the root of his problem and change what he could.

“You really need a more precise understanding of exactly what ways is your body tight and why is it tight,” he says. For him, understanding the underlying reasons that he was experiencing tightness helped him bring his body back into balance. 

6. Use the resources available to you 

Rick knows that not everyone can make a chiropractic appointment or afford treatments like posture therapy. He shares videos on YouTube for free to show people things like stretches for low back pain. 

Sharing his tips helps him connect with other people who are finding their way out of pain. It goes back to the core of his philosophy about pain management: “I don’t want you to fix me,” he says. “I want you to show me how I can help heal myself.”

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Written by:

Rebecca Samuelson, MFA

Rebecca Samuelson is a Bay Area poet from Hayward, California who writes from the intersection of caretaking and grief. She holds a MFA in creative writing, with a concentration in poetry, from Saint Mary’s College of California.

Edited by:

Tanya Bricking Leach

Tanya Bricking Leach is an award-winning journalist who has worked in both breaking news and hospital communications. She has been a writer and editor for more than 20 years.

Reviewed by:

Patricia Pinto-Garcia, MD, MPH

Patricia Pinto-Garcia, MD, MPH, is a medical editor at GoodRx. She is a licensed, board-certified pediatrician with more than a decade of experience in academic medicine.

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