Having suffered a lower back injury at work back in 1999, I have now been struggling for relief from constant back pain for nearly twenty years. Some days, the pain has been so bad that I couldn’t even walk very far.
You may learn something from all that I’ve gone through, and am now saying bye-bye to constant lower back and hip pain.
In recent years, I sought out an athletic therapist (the one who keeps our local hockey team on the ice!), who has created an exercise and stretch routine for me to do daily. Appointments are set for each and every flair up, so to reduce my downtime.
Sitting is the worst thing you can do, my therapist told me.
And, what am I doing? Yeah, sitting here typing out this article, sharing with you my story on how you too can say bye-bye to constant lower back and hip pain.
Turns out, it was easier than I had ever imagined!
After having been diagnosed by two different specialists, as being in need of a total hip replacement, and only after much researching, I opted out for stem cell injections instead.
Having gone through that, part of the healing process is to seek a therapist’s help through exercises and stretches to assist the joint to heal properly, and to increase my range of motion.
Well, my range of motion has improved for sure … but the lower back and piriformis syndrome (literally, a pain in the butt) continued to affect me … a LOT.
Once again, after doing much research regarding this syndrome, I started to be concerned that this syndrome might cause my hip joint to not heal as it should. So I am taking serious aim at getting this under control.
My therapist’s warning about sitting haunted me, and so I started toying with the idea of buying a kneeling chair for my office … you know, instead of the executive high back office chair I was using.
Having bought and used ergonomic office chairs in the past, I have been known to pay upwards of $600 for one of this type of chair.
Did I want to pay that again?
Nooooo thank you!
The most expensive ergonomic office chair that I ever owned ended up being recycled for what little metal was in it, due to the fact that the vinyl had cracked and torn years ago.
Checking with a few local upholstery businesses, I soon discovered it would cost me more to repair that chair than I originally bought it for. YIKES!
To top that off, it would only be a matter of time and the entire chair would need re-upholstering once more. This would not be a wise economical move … in my opinion, of course.
Getting back to suffering with piriformis syndrome … after a very painful day of suffering with this pain STILL, I broke down and started searching the internet for the perfect kneeling chair. I literally knelt on a very thick cushion, in front of my office computer to do the searching.
Holey-Hannah!
Some kneeling chairs were selling for nearly $900 … really? OUCH!
After about two hours of looking and looking through many options, I gave up the ghost on the idea of making a purchase, for that day. So many slightly different styles, so many complaints … wow. Decisions, decisions, decisions; I left my desk dizzy from reviewing the options offered in search results.
The next day, a friend emailed me, asking me how my lower back and hip pain was today … and, if I’d found a resolve yet. I started explaining to her about the type of chair I was giving serious consideration to purchase, then I decided, heck … I’ll find a picture of one to send to her.
Whether Google got to know what I was looking for from searching the day before … or my computer’s operating system did (scary thought, huh?!) but, this time when I searched for a kneeling chair (my affiliate link) … well, this one in the how to assemble video below, came up in my search results straight away, so I copied and pasted the image into my email message to my friend.
After clicking the “Send” button on my email, I could see that my browser was still open to the vendor’s page who is selling this chair. That’s when I really started paying attention to this particular chair.
Remember now, yesterday I spent quite a few hours searching and searching … reading reviews, noticing how thin the cushions were on MANY kneeling chairs, and reading the many complaints.
In observing THIS chair (my affiliate link)… Wow!
Look how thick those cushions are on THIS chair … and … its vinyl covered, NOT fabric … and, look at the PRICE TAG … seriously … and delivered to my door ta’boot … no struggling to go pick it up somewhere?
Decision made … ten minutes later, my purchase was completed and now all I had to do was wait for delivery.
Well, don’t you know, within a few days (not weeks, as stated after my order was completed!), my kneeling chair (my affiliate link) was delivered right to my door!
Once I had finished my exercise and stretch routine for the day, I decided to try assembling the kneeling chair. I carefully opened the box in the hallway, just outside my office, where I have lots of room to work. Then, I laid out and checked to make sure that all of the parts were in fact available for assembling the chair.
Hah! I nearly panicked, because one size of the screws seemed 4 shy of what was supposed to arrive. I wasn’t long realizing that those 4 screws were included, and pre-assembled to the one end of the four different tubes to be used in assembling this chair.
Looking at the printed instructions … YIKES … then I noticed the vendor offers a video on how to assemble this kneeling chair. Phhhhhheeeew!
Once I had viewed a few minutes of their video, I was please to see how much easier the person doing the assembly made this task out to be. That’s when I re-started the video and started bringing parts of the chair into my office, ready for assembling, while starting and stopping the video for each step of the instructions.
WOW!
Assembling this keeling chair could NOT have been made any simpler, not at all.
Within minutes, my new kneeling office chair was ready to try out.
For me, this is the best kneeling office chair ever … but … I will warn you, it has taken me some time for my shins to get used to balancing some of my body weight. So far, it has been two weeks of using this chair daily, and my shins are complaining less.
However, it is recommended that you alternate with your regular office chair until you get used to the kneeling chair. But … I would have to adjust my monitors and keyboard EACH time I alternate chairs, so, I opted to forego that step.
The BEST part is that my suffering from piriformis syndrome is taking a LOT of “time outs” these last few days, and in only two weeks. I am hopeful that this syndrome will soon disappear altogether.
Now when it’s time for me to take a break and walk away from my office, I get up from my new kneeling office chair feeling completely refreshed instead of wondering if I can even walk.
One executive high back office chair in good condition is now up for sale for $30.
So, this is how I’m saying bye-bye to constant lower back and hip pain. I double-dog dare you to buy and use a kneeling chair (my affiliate link) to end your suffering from constant lower back and hip pain. I’m betting you will learn to LOVE it too.
Other pain relieving treatments and products that I have reviewed here are as follows:
- Device to Help You Reduce Your Back Pain
- Natural Supplement to Give Joint Pain Relief
- Stem Cell Injections vs Joint Replacement
- Treatment for Lower Back Pain
UPDATE: 11 Sep 2018
WARNING: Please be aware that you need to remove your lower legs from this chair BEFORE twisting your body to get up from your sitting position, when using this chair. This is NOT a failing of this chair itself, it is strictly a safe usage warning.
The reason I am sharing this with you is that due to my having twisted my torso FIRST before removing my lower legs from this chair, I ended up tearing the meniscus in my right knee. This is VERY painful, and I want you all to be aware of this BEFORE you end up doing the same thing I did.
I do hope you found this post to be valuable. If so, please do share it … and, your comment below would be greatly appreciated tpp.
Credit for Header: image by the original uploader was Harrygouvas at Greek Wikipedia (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons
