DH has a bad back and works a manual job...

[chatenoire]

Posting here for traffic. My DH has a bad back, he's suffered with it for at least the past 7/8 years. There's been a couple of times that he's actually had a torsion injury. They normally prescribe him a cocktail of cocodamol and diazepam. He does do yoga, but the GP has never mentioned anything like physio.
He has a VERY physical job working with boats. Would it be sensible for him to go for a career change? Be firm about a physio referral? I feel like the GPs just say that it's chronic and nothing can really be done about it.

Be very firm about a physio referral. DH also has back trouble & results in emergency trips co-codamol & diazepam, latest incident he then visited the Dr who said the hospital won't even consider further treatment until he's had at least 1 month of physio

Here there is a 16 week wait to be seen by an NHS Physio after referral. I'd suggest paying to be seen privately (initial cost here is £75 or £100 if you want the most senior physio). If you have health insurance it might cover the cost of going privately for you.

I'd pay for a physio. If you look around, you might be able to get high quality help at a decent price. I have paid £45 this week to see an experienced physio.

We're happy to pay for a private one but he just doesn't go. It's even worse because he only gets SSP so when he's off we basically lose his income.

What do you mean "he just doesn't go"? Do you mean you book a physio and then your dh doesn't bother going? If so, he's an adult. If he doesn't want to take steps to sort out his back there is nothing you or anyone else can do. Even if you do get him to attend, it's complete waste of time and money unless he is willing to do the exercises himself at home.

Surely that's the main incentive for getting treatment for it? If he continues in such a physically demanding job without doing what he can to protect his back, isn't it more likely he'll really damage it and be unable to work at all?

I have had a bad back for over ten years following a slipped disc, only alleviated with tramadol and codeine, and the only thing that I found to help is lifting weights, and I mean using a bar bell and doing squats, overhead presses, deadlifts and bench press. I've grown stronger all over which helps the muscles along the spine and glutes stabilise the spinal column. It might not work for everyone but it works for me. Yoga never really helped me as it encourages more hyper mobility in the spine whereas what I needed was strengthening. Just sharing my experience.

The career change question depends on many things. Does he have other skills? Can you afford a spell out of work while he retrains? How old is he? Close to retirement or not would influence the thinking etc.

Yes absolutely!

But he simply doesn't take the steps to book an appointment. Even he's stubborn to see the GP for medication or take any time off. You can tell he's physically in pain and still won't take any action beyond a couple of ibuprofens.

He's mid 40s with no formal qualifications. He finished secondary school and everything else he's learned on the job.

I had a bad back from a postural issue. Once it had gone that far there was no correcting it without physio as the way my body was trying to stabilise itself was making the issue worse. (Back muscles shortening to try to stabilise, twisting my pelvis out of whack even further).

I had to stop yoga whilst I corrected it. Took about 6 months and was so lucky to find someone who could. It’s like a lost art now. So many people have no understanding of the body. Physios and chiropractors and doctors included.

It was actually an old school Pilates trained person who fixed me. DP also had issues and she fixed him too.

It was expensive.

Goodluck