I wonder if many of those with back problems really have muscle problems more than back problems. If I need to stand up, is it the spine, itself, that lifts me to my feet? Or, is it the muscles that pull and stretch to lift me into a standing position? I have trouble walking and running and climbing stairs, and they tell me it is because I have a bad back. But, it seems it is the muscles that lift my legs, giving them the strength to walk and run and climb.
Oh, the back is perhaps as much a part of it as the muscles. But, I wonder if the back sometimes is treated, alone, when the muscles are as much a part of the problem, or more. If I go to a specialist in backs, is he going to treat the spine and overlook the muscles?
Give me a spine doctor who is a chiropractor, who is a neurologist. Let him (or her) be more than an orthopedic doctor. We need integrated medicine if we are to give the back its best care. The nerves and the muscles and the spine all work together. If all the problems are going to be diagnosed and if the doctor is going to determine which is the key problem and what is the best way to treat it, it seems you must either train him in all the disciplines, or bring three or four doctors together and let them discuss it.
And, it seems the cleaner answer is to train one person in all the disciplines. If four doctors are weighing in, they would each have to learn the disciplines of the others, anyway, in order to defer to another person's diagnosis.
Twelves years in medical school then? I don't know, I only know we need to pack all the knowledge about the back into one doctor.
I think of the parable of the blind men and the elephant, and how one man touches the trunk and thinks it is a snake, and another who touches the leg and thinks it is a pillar like a tree trunk. Our creating medical specialties has its shortcoming. It creates doctors who each are blind to different parts of the problem.
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