Pain, Mobility & Better Living

Deadlifts and PIVD: Is Lifting Weights  Damaging Your Spine? Can deadlifts cause a slipped disc? Should someone with a prolapsed intervertebral disc (PIVD) avoid weight training forever? And is the deadlift dangerous—or is the real problem how, when and how much we lift? Imagine this familiar situation. A young gym enthusiast bends down to lift a barbell. The weight feels manageable. But halfway through the lift, a sudden pain shoots into the lower back. By evening, the pain begins travelling down one leg. A scan later reports a prolapsed intervertebral disc. The immediate conclusion is often: “Deadlifts have destroyed my spine.” But the science is more nuanced. Deadlifts are not automatically harmful to the spine, and a PIVD diagnosis does not necessarily mean a lifetime ban on lifting weights. However, heavy lifting can aggravate symptoms in some circumstances, especially when the load exceeds a person's current capacity or the back is already symptomatic. Understanding the relat...

       Teriparatide: The Bone-Building Injection Who needs it, what tests should be done, and what precautions should you know? A patient walks into the clinic with a vertebral fracture. The DXA scan shows severe osteoporosis. They have already tried an osteoporosis medicine—or the fracture risk is so high that waiting for a conventional treatment to work feels uncomfortable. Then comes the question: “Doctor, should I take teriparatide?” Teriparatide is different from many familiar osteoporosis medicines. Instead of primarily slowing bone breakdown, it is an anabolic—or bone-building—therapy . Given intermittently, it stimulates new bone formation and can reduce vertebral and non-vertebral fracture risk in appropriately selected patients. But teriparatide is not an injection for every patient with low bone density . The important question is not simply “Is my T-score low?” but: “Is my fracture risk high enough to justify an anabolic treatment?” What exactly is terip...

Cerebral Palsy: Can It Be Cured? Understanding the Causes, Treatment and the Powerful Role of Rehabilitation There is a moment many parents never forget. Their child is not sitting when other children are sitting. The legs seem unusually stiff—or perhaps strangely floppy. One hand is used much more than the other. Walking is delayed. Someone finally says: “Your child may have cerebral palsy.” For many families, the word cerebral palsy sounds frightening. The first questions are often immediate: Why did this happen? Will my child ever walk? Can cerebral palsy be cured? Will therapy help? The answers are more hopeful—and more nuanced—than many families are initially told. Cerebral palsy (CP) is a group of disorders affecting movement, posture and balance because of abnormal development or injury to the developing brain. The brain injury itself does not progressively worsen, although the person's abilities, symptoms and complications can change throughout life. ( CDC ) And perhaps th...

Raised Uric Acid: Does Everyone Need Medication? When a blood test says “high uric acid,” should you immediately start allopurinol? A routine health check shows uric acid 7.5 mg/dL . There is no joint pain, no swelling and no previous attack of gout. The immediate question often is: “Doctor, should I start medicine to bring it down?” Not necessarily. A raised serum uric acid level is not the same thing as having gout. Many people have hyperuricaemia without ever developing a gout attack . NICE specifically notes that while many people with gout have elevated serum urate, many people with hyperuricaemia do not have gout.  The decision to prescribe urate-lowering medication should therefore depend on the whole clinical picture—not just the number on the laboratory report. What is uric acid? Uric acid is produced when the body breaks down purines. Normally, it is dissolved in the blood and eliminated primarily through the kidneys. When uric acid remains elevated, monosodium urate crys...

                 When the surgery is over—but the pain isn't For many patients, spine surgery represents the end of a long journey with back or leg pain. But sometimes, months after the operation, the pain persists—or returns. The patient may ask: “If the surgery was successful, why am I still in pain?” Persistent or recurrent pain after spinal surgery has traditionally been called Failed Back Surgery Syndrome (FBSS) . Increasingly, clinicians use the term Persistent Spinal Pain Syndrome Type 2 (PSPS-T2) because postoperative pain can arise from several different mechanisms and does not necessarily mean that the surgery itself has failed. The challenge is to determine why the pain persists and what the next useful step should be. Why does pain persist after spine surgery? There is rarely one explanation for every patient. Possible contributors include: Recurrent or residual disc herniation Persistent nerve compression or spinal stenosis Epid...

Does Running Wear Out Your Knees? Running, jogging and knee osteoarthritis: separating myth from evidence For years, runners have heard a familiar warning: “If you keep running, you will damage your knees.” It sounds plausible. Running repeatedly loads the knee, and osteoarthritis (OA) involves changes in the joint, including cartilage and bone. So, does every step bring us closer to a knee replacement? The evidence does not support such a simple conclusion. For recreational runners, current evidence does not show that running itself inevitably causes knee osteoarthritis . In fact, several systematic reviews have found no higher prevalence of knee OA among runners compared with non-runners. However, the evidence is observational and has important limitations, so running should not be described as either universally harmful or universally protective. ( PubMed ) The Myth: “Running =Knee Wear and Tear” The knee is not a machine with a fixed number of steps. It is a living, adaptable biolo...

  TECH NECK: WHEN YOUR SMARTPHONE STARTS HURTING YOUR NECK The modern neck problem nobody taught us about—and why changing how we use technology may be as important as treating the pain How many hours a day do you spend looking down? Checking WhatsApp. Scrolling Instagram. Watching YouTube. Answering emails. Reading medical journals. Working on a laptop. Watching a series in bed. Technology has made life easier—but our necks are paying a price. The term “tech neck” or “text neck” is commonly used to describe neck and upper-body symptoms associated with prolonged device use, particularly when the head is held forward or downward for extended periods. The scientific literature, however, is more nuanced: “tech neck” is a descriptive term rather than a formal diagnosis, and studies do not prove that smartphone posture alone causes neck pain in every person.  Still, prolonged smartphone use can increase neck flexion and forward-head positioning, and smartphone overuse has been ass...