Back Pain Guide Books

There are literally thousands of books, along with millions of magazine, newspaper and Internet articles that have been written as a back pain guide.

How do you know which are good resources for information on back pain and which are not? It's not always easy...

...but this is how I choose books like the ones I've listed below.

I check out the author. I rely on my information on back pain from reputable health care professionals, or from people like myself who have had long-term back pain symptoms and are sharing their back pain treatment stories with others.

Or, if a back pain guide book is recommended to me by someone I trust - all that much better!

And since I am a firm believer that back pain varies from one person to the next, I am very open minded when I read any resources on back pain, knowing that if only a piece of the advice is relevant to my situation, I am still ahead of the game in having found a remedy for back pain.

Back Pain Guide Books

Available online from amazon.com, many of these back pain books can be purchased new or used! I own these books myself and have found them to be not only insightful into my own back pain...

...but have made great gifts for friends with back aches!

The Healthy Back Directory is a comprehensive back pain guide by Kim Davis and consultant editor Dr. Anthony Campbell. The book is broken down into tabbed sections on Your Back, Your Bones, Your Joints, Your Muscles and Aging.

In The Back Pain Book, Mike Hage, and other colleagues at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, present a self-help guide for daily relief of neck and lower back pain. The book is filled with back, neck, leg, arm and neck exercise examples, along with techniques and tips for reducing back pain in everyday activities.

In Treat Your own Neck, Robert McKenzie stresses that "management of your neck is your own responsibility" and that you "must learn how to deal with the present symptoms and how to prevent future problems." Mr. McKenzie also feels that self-treatment for neck pain is more effective for long-term management, than other forms of treatment.

In Treat Your own Back, Robert McKenzie tells you, and shows you, how to "put your back in" if you have "put your back out" and stresses your responsibility in the long-term management of your low back problems.

In Healing Back Pain - The Mind-Body Connection, John Sarno, M.D. uses actual case histories of his own patients to show why "tension and unexpressed emotions - particularly anger - cause chronic back pain, and how awareness and understanding are the first steps to doing something about it."

Mind over Back Pain describes a medical disorder known as the Tension Myositis Syndrome - TMS, which John Sarno, M.D. believes is the "major cause of the common syndromes of pain involving the neck, shoulders, back, buttocks and limbs." Dr Sarno presents excellent insight into dealing with back pain.

Although not truly a back pain guide, I have included (and highly recommend) the following book on anxiety and stress reduction, as it is often said that these factors can be significant contributors to back pain.

Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D, uses the wisdom of the body and mind to face stress, pain, and illness - through mindfulness meditation - and walks the reader through the University of Massachusetts Medical Center program of stress reduction clinic. I recommend this book not only for people who have had a positive experience with meditation, but for those who have never thought mediation was possible.

Why do I recommend these particular books as a back pain guide? In my opinion...

...they all contain information that can be valuable to many people, they are easy to read - written for the most part in layman's terms, and when exercises are included they are well written and illustrated.

Because these are all paperbacks, with the exception of The Healthy Back Directory, these back pain guide books are also very inexpensive.