Back pain after surgery: The case of Sally S.


Back pain, Back surgery, Buttock pain, Hip pain, Leg pain, Low back pain, Scoliosis / Saturday, March 14th, 2009

woman-backpainBack pain often continues even when surgery to correct a herniated disc has been performed. Sally S., a  woman in her early 40’s, was referred to my Boston area Neuromuscular Therapy center by her psychotherapist for treatment of ten years of chronic low back pain. There had been no initiating accident or injury. She described the pain as “sharp knife-edge pain” in her back and buttock with a “twisting pain” around her hip and thigh to the front of her knee on the outside. The location of the back pain was in her sacrum (the triangular bone at the base of the spine below the waist) and across it on either side of the pelvis.

She had three structural asymmetries, all of which can cause problems if the muscles get overworked trying to balance the uneven bones:

  1. A medically-imaged scoliosis with bulging and herniated discs that had led to a back surgery a few years before to remove the disc at L2/3
  2. An undiagnosed Morton’s Foot Structure 
  3. Upper arms out of proportion to her spine

There was also a genetic predisposition. Her mother had a history of back problems.