Back Pain

Most low back pain that keeps coming back is not caused by something you can buy your way out of. It is a load problem: too much, too little, or the wrong kind, for the state your back is in this week.

That is why the same belt helps one person and does nothing for the next, and why two people with identical scans can have completely different weeks.

Where to start

• Lower Back Pain: 6 Checks Before You Buy Another Belt, Roller or Cushion - most of what is sold cannot reach the problem, and six checks tell you which one you actually have
• The 3am Checklist - the same approach applied to sleep

What this section is for

The point is not to talk you out of getting help. It is to stop you spending another year on the wrong layer, which is the single most common pattern we see: a real problem, addressed accurately for a different problem.

So each page here does three things and stops:

• says what the check is and how to run it yourself
• says where the claim comes from, or marks it as first-hand clinical experience
• says which symptoms mean you should stop self-testing and see someone

What this section is not

It is not a diagnosis, and it cannot tell you what is happening in your spine. It is a way of sorting what you already know into a next step, and it is built to send you to a clinician when something looks unusual rather than to reassure you.