When washing by hand, do not use a sink or basin that makes you stoop: it is better to put a bowl at the right height for you in the sink or on the draining board.

Wet clothes and bed linen are much heavier than dry ones: lifting wet sheets and [...]

Surgery should be suggested when there is threat of permanent nerve damage from compression by a prolapsed disc; arthritic spurs or displaced bone fragment. Persistent instability which sometimes follows fractures in the spine, may require surgery fusion or internal fixation.

No surgeon can ever guarantee beforehand that a spinal operation will [...]

This is a similar procedure, used for making discs visible on X-rays, and may show up prolapse bulges that do not show up on myelograms. The contrast medium is injected into the centre of discs, usually the three lowest lumbar discs. Only a small quantity of contrast medium is used, and the patient does not [...]

A completely degenerated disc is much thinner than a normal one. On an X-ray, this shows up as a narrowing of the space between vertebral bodies, since the disc itself does not show on X-rays. As well as being flattened, it is stiff and fibrous. At this stage it is unlikely to cause back pain. [...]

Altogether there are 149 joints in the spine. As well as those which link the vertebrae to each other, there are those which link the spine to other structures. For instance, the first cervical vertebra is joined to the part of the skull called the occiput, and the sacrum is joined to the parts of [...]