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INTRODUCTION
HOW THIS "WEBBOOK" CAN BE USED
HOW THIS "WEBBOOK" CAME INTO BEING
THE OCONNOR TECHNIQUE (TM) IS BASED
UPON THE NOVEL UNDERSTANDING THAT
THE OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF BACK
AND NECK PAIN ORIGINATES FROM
MECHANICAL SPINAL PROBLEMS IN WHICH
DISC MATERIAL HAS BEEN PHYSICALLY
DISPLACED. THE BOOK AND THIS
WEBSITE OF THE SAME NAME, MAKING
YOUR BAD BACK BETTER with The O'Connor
Technique (tm), How You Can Become Your
Own Chiropractor, by William T. O'Connor, Jr.,
M.D., DESCRIBES METHODS BY WHICH
BACK PAIN SUFFERERS, THEMSELVES,
CAN IDENTIFY THE NATURE OF THEIR
PROBLEM, PHYSICALLY RELOCATE THE
DISPLACED DISC MATERIAL, AND PREVENT
IT FROM DISLOCATING AGAIN. IN
ESSENCE, THE READER/USERS CAN
BECOME THEIR OWN "CHIROPRACTORS"
BY PERFORMING VARIOUS "MANEUVERS,"
WHICH CONSIST OF SIMPLE-TO
INTRODUCTION
HOW THIS "WEBBOOK" CAN BE USED
HOW THIS "WEBBOOK" CAME INTO BEING
THE OCONNOR TECHNIQUE (TM) IS BASED
UPON THE NOVEL UNDERSTANDING THAT
THE OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF BACK
AND NECK PAIN ORIGINATES FROM
MECHANICAL SPINAL PROBLEMS IN WHICH
DISC MATERIAL HAS BEEN PHYSICALLY
DISPLACED. THE BOOK AND THIS
WEBSITE OF THE SAME NAME, MAKING
YOUR BAD BACK BETTER with The O'Connor
Technique (tm), How You Can Become Your
Own Chiropractor, by William T. O'Connor, Jr.,
M.D., DESCRIBES METHODS BY WHICH
SUBSCRIPTION MEMBERSHIP
THROUGH THIS WEBSITE
AND/OR
ORDERING THE BOOK:
MAKING YOUR BAD BACK BETTER
By
Dr. William Thomas O'Connor, Jr., M.D.
WEAKNESS
(That is, if you lose strength in your extremities)
A LOSS OF BODY FUNCTION
(That is, if you lose bowel, bladder or any
neurological function)
DO NOT DELAY, SEEK COMPETENT
MEDICAL CONSULTATION IMMEDIATELY
If this positioning relieves your pain somewhat,
then with some degree of reassurance you can
convince yourself that you, indeed, are suffering
due to disc-related pain; because, if your pain is
due to some other source of back pain, it is
unlikely to be relieved to any substantive degree
by this positioning. What is most important in
getting pain relief when adopting this posture is
that it shows that, with proper positioning, the
pain can be significantly lessened. That is an
important distinction to be made. Many other
sources of spinal pain are not so relieved by
changes in positioning. So, when you get relief,
even if only transiently while you are in that
exact position, it says that you most proably
don't have one of those other conditions whose
pain is not relieved regardless of the position
you adopt..
PAIN MEDICINES
When the pain is so intense that you need to be
immobilized, pain medicines are not only
justified but usually are a necessity. A simple
guideline for using medicines during back pain
episodes that are brought on by trauma or lifting
wrong or "over doing it," is to take only enough
to control the pain. If you are familiar with The
O'Connor Technique (tm) MANEUVERS to get
out of pain, you can attempt the MANEUVERS
that you have found successful. Then, if the pain
is not immediately and dramatically alleviated,
taking acetaminophen or/and narcotic pain
killers during the first few days, while also taking
an anti-inflammatory medicine to get control of
inflammation as soon as possible, is a good way
to reduce the predictable severity. However, if
the pain originates in the discs, it is a
mechanical problem and the only means to
extinguish the pain is with a mechanical means.
The MANEUVERS provide those mechanical
solutions.
If the episode is severe, the events of pain
frequent or prolonged, you can expect
inflammation to play a role. Don't wait until it
gets well-established before acting against it
that the disc did not get worse on its own. Such
a study would require the coordination of a
chiropractor and a neurosurgeon such that the
chiropractor anticipated that he could make a
particular patient worse and, immediately after
he does, sends him to a neurosurgeon.
Alternatively, thousands of patients going to
chiropractors would have to have a CT or NMRI
immediately prior to and after such an event.
The former would never occur because no
reasonable chiropractor will expose himself to
the potential lawsuit resulting from a condition
he knew he made worse in the presence of an
anticipation to do so and the latter would be so
expensive as to be prohibitive. So, the requisite
science to provide this information does not
appear to be forthcoming in the immediate
future.
The O'Connor Technique (tm) doesn't fall into
this trap because, largely, through selfmanipulation, the patient is able to control the
direction and level of force at all times, which
they can automatically stop before it becomes
too painful to cause damage. No rapid torque is
required to achieve the same results in nearly all
the people who would otherwise be actually
helped by chiropractors. In that sense, the
TEST YOURSELF
Since developing The O'Connor Technique (tm)
and putting its PRINCIPLES successfully into
clinical practice, it became largely obvious to this
author that the overwhelming majority of
backache, back pain, and neck pain was caused
by mechanical problems involving the
intervertebral disc that could be treated easily
and successfully by manipulation; however,
there is still a certain percentage of pain related