Back Pain Research
and the Limits of the
Conventional Medical Model

Innovations in Understanding

During the last half-century, back pain research has benefited from several profound innovations in understanding.

For example, Dr. Janet Travell, M.D., made clear in her two-volume work, Myofascial Pain and Dysfunction (co-authored with Dr. David Simons), that myofascial trigger points in muscles are a major source of much chronic pain in the body.

Dr. Ida Rolf, Ph.D., biochemist and physiologist, developed Structural Integration (aka Rolfing), a profound method of bodywork designed to relieve painful conditions by lengthening the connective tissue (aka fascia) surrounding muscles.

But, unfortunately, the work of Dr. Travell and Dr. Rolf (as well as many other innovators in the field of chronic pain) has only slowly made its way into mainstream medical thinking.

Why the delay?

It’s due to our collective undervaluing of the muscles.

Those Undervalued Muscles

Despite the fact that our muscles make up 40% or more of our total body weight, they remain the ignored stepchild in modern medical schools.

Instead, medical schools focus attention on joints, nerves, bursae, and bones. The unfortunate result for sufferers of lower back pain is that many physicians don’t have much experience in dealing with muscular problems.

And that’s brings us to the crux of the issue...

To understand back pain, it’s essential to understand the muscles. The majority of back pain is caused, not by degenerative discs or pinched nerves, but by dysfunction in the muscles.

Of course, in some instances disc or nerve problems or other pathologies are present and require serious medical intervention such as surgery. But such cases occupy a very small percentage of lower back problems.

By far, the highest percentage of individuals afflicted with back pain are suffering from muscular problems.

Limits of the Conventional Medical Model

Therefore the primary reasons for conventional medicine’s shortcomings with respect to back pain research and the understanding and treatment of lower back pain can be summarized as follows:

• The predominant medical model has too narrow a focus on technology and technological innovation to the exclusion of manual therapy innovations and a holistic view of the body.

• Medical schools have too narrow a focus on joints and bursae, bones and nerves, to the exclusion of muscles and fascia, the primary causes of back pain.

• The pharmaceutical industry, for whom pain killers are a multi-billion dollar per year business, exert too profound an influence in modern medicine. They have a lot stake in keeping the public interested in (some would say, addicted to) pain killers as the primary mode of relief.

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