Many people accept, or are forced to accept, that their back pain is untreatable. That can turn to despair when treatment after treatment fails to bring any lasting difference.
“If I could tell people with back pain one thing, it would be that there is hope for you to return to a pain-free life,” says Gokhale Method teacher Tegan Kahn, speakindg from her studio in Fisher.
A woman attending one of Tegan’s free workshops recently reported that she’d had sciatica for 15 months.
“She’d been trying everything she could find and nothing was taking the pain away for more than a few hours at a time,” says Tegan.
“But by the end of the workshop, she was already feeling better, and it was something she could do for herself at home any time. She thanked me with tears in her eyes — finally she had hope. I almost cried myself.”
The Gokhale Method is based on the premise that most of us have become disconnected from our “natural human movement blueprint”.
Tegan says this shift was likely driven by unfortunate changes in furniture design from World War I onwards.
“The fashions changed, our chairs changed, and our bodies became moulded to the shapes of the chairs,” she says.
“Unfortunately, the economic furniture and pillows that were designed to counteract the growing rate of back pain, in most cases, actually make back pain worse. My students often throw out their lumbar cushions and cervical pillows after learning the Gokhale Method.”
According to Tegan, you don’t need gyms or dry needling (although she says those can often be helpful).
“The real way to target back pain for lasting relief is to learn to use your body in the way it was designed to be moved,” she says.
“Small tweaks to the ways you habitually sit, stand, bend, and walk can make huge differences over time, often more than people expect.
“I’m continually surprised by the changes my students report — not just less back pain (86% of our students report improvements) — but also more energy, better lymph flow, even smaller bunions.”
These are changes Tegan sees all the time, including in herself.
“I love being able to go to Zumba, feel the new strength in my muscles, and know they’ll protect my spine and knees while I jump and dance around.
“I used to have to drag myself to exercise, but it’s so much easier to get motivated when you aren’t worried about sore muscles or lactic acid buildup the next day.”
Tegan thinks the Gokhale Method is poised to take the world by storm.
“The Gokhale Method is not widely known outside of California, where its founder, Esther Gokhale, lives. But it is very well respected. Several leading spine experts in the US are strong advocates of the method.”
One of them is Professor Matthew Smuck, Medical Director of Rehabilitation at Stanford University, who is currently testing the method in a randomised controlled trial for lower back pain.
“It’s the absolute gold standard for assessing effectiveness,” says Tegan.
“So it’s very exciting. I can’t wait for the time when the Gokhale Method is a household name, so that people suffering from unexplained back pain can finally get some lasting relief.”
You’ll be able to say you heard about the Gokhale Method in Canberra Weekly before everyone was doing it.
Find out more at gokhalemethod.com
