explain
pain
section
3
page
54
Get to know your LAFTs
Formerly known as discs
‘D
isc’ is an unfortunate name for the remarkable
structures that intermarry vertebrae. They are not, at any
stage of life, like discs. In anatomy andmedical books, they
are usually drawn in amanner that makes them
recognisable as discs, but such drawings bear no
resemblance to the real thing. In drawings, discussion and
diagnoses, they aremade to resemble free-floating frisbees.
They are not like frisbees!
We suggest they should be
called ‘living adaptable force
transducers’ (LAFTs).
(Which,
incidentally, means that between
the 5th lumbar vertebrae and
the pelvis is the ‘last LAFT’).
LAFTs are firmly integratedwith
adjacent vertebrae and aremade
of the samematerial as your ear
plus some super strong
ligament, just like the ligaments
in your ankle. In 1934 a famous
study
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showed that the LAFT
could swell onto a nerve in the
lumbar spine. Since then, all
sorts of therapies have been aimed at the LAFT. Current
approaches include: manual techniques of manipulating it
and squeezing it backwards; surgical techniques of
removing it or snipping pieces off; injecting it with extract
of pawpaw (papaya) or even just blue dye
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and
superheating or burning it. Practitioners of the various
techniques have reported some successes, but nothing has
been overly successful for back pain. The wide variability of
treatments focussing on LAFTs suggests that LAFT injuries
are not fully understood.
LAFT injuries also attract some very strong adjectives like
‘ruptured’, ‘crumbling’, ‘degenerated’, ‘herniated’ and
‘slipped’. These words alone are strong enough to stop you
moving properly and theymay not be giving you a true
indication of what is happening in the LAFT.
LAFTs have become so famous and blamed for somuch that
people often think about them in isolation. The figure to the
left shows a stylised LAFT. Note that it is attached to the
surrounding bones and also note the concentric shock
absorbing rings that give it the look of a squashed onion.
The joints and vertebrae are surrounded by lots of ligament
andmuscle.
LAFT
vertebrae
supporting
muscle and
ligament
