I work essentially two jobs and I have fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. I’m divorced and need extra money to get my two kids through college; just got that accomplished. I was laid off for a year and 3 months in October 2008 and noticed a physical decline from depression, anxiety and drive to freelance 24/7 to make up for the loss of income. I finally found a job as a PR director at an Episcopal School but I haven’t been able to make up ground with my health. I edit/write/deal with the media/post on social media all day at the school after an hour commute. Then I commute same hour, or more, home and afer a break, begin freelancing. My back has been killing me. I had started to look around for a chair, and this would be a Godsend. I HAVE to work; financially, I need to keep going. I”m looking for anything that will help me keep going, at almost age 62 with 40 years of work behind me.

My sad story:
I’m self-employed, so I have a terrible boss and an awful staff. ::: sigh :::
As a writer and reader, I have a vast collection of research material and books. It’s not hoarder status, but it’s substantial.
I have lived in my apartment for 16 years and I am being evicted. They’re renovating the units and they figure they’ll reach mine by the end of May. It takes at least 30 days to renovate (from the floor up and the walls in/out), so I have to move to a renovated unit, move out and move back in (no, they aren’t paying any of these moving costs) or do something else.
This means I have to go through ALL the books and files, deciding what should be trashed, saved, donated, sold, or put in storage.
This equals hours every day in my chair, after hours of crafting amusing and educational articles and books, and my back lets me know that it isn’t happy.
Oh, and I’m seriously old. Much too old to have to move someplace.
Thank you for listening (reading) my sad story.

I already like Relax The Back on Facebook. I doubt I can tell the saddest story–because I don’t have any experience doing that! However, I will tell you that my back hurts so bad, that my husband bought me a new chair last month. and, two days ago, I bought an inversion table. Clearly, I need all the help I can get. and, quite possibly, your chair is the only chair that can ease my discomfort. Thanks for the giveaway.

I first injured my back in high school playing volleyball. It was all downhill from there. Here’s an xray from December 2011 showing the state of my spine: http://yfrog.com/h6rzou9j. Nice ‘n crooked, eh?

Now I’m having problems with my neck that affects my mouse arm, but the doctor can’t take a closer look with an MRI because if I have one — the magnet in my head will rip right out. Don’t want to subject the poor technician to such a sight.

Just like my back, my heavily discounted 11-year-old Aeron chair has given out. I’ve got a cheap replacement, but haven’t felt “right” since before the Aeron chair grew old.

As a mama of three … the cheap chair ain’t healthy for the kiddos. After all, when mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.

Mr. Shankman and the awesome staff at Relax the Back,
I am no executive but I am a special education teacher that spends countless hours on my feet. When I do get to sit down it’s usually after school at my desk in a chair made for elementary aged students. That’s right, my chair is a crummy plastic chair about 1 foot off the ground. The worst part is, I end up sitting in the chair for at least two hours after my students are gone.

I too suffer from back problems but not as frequent as Peter. My back generally goes out at the most inopportune time, but just like everyone else I gotta keep on truckin.

Please help me Peter I need to Relax the Back!!!

Sincerely,
Vance Campbell

Peter,
There are sadder stories here, but, like you I have a bad back. Mine comes from playing halfback at Choate where my nom de plume was Marty “Tank” Smith. Ah the crazy stuff we do when we are young :). I write this note from my office in Raleigh instead of my home in Durham because I would long ago have needed to retire (it is about 9:00 PM and I’m working on Tweets for a client) if my butt and back was in the chair at home. Last summer I rode a bicycle across America. I called the Trip Martin’s Ride To Cure Cancer. Many thought I was crazy and wouldn’t make it (my mother included). Why undertake such a thing at 53? I’m a cancer survivor and one of the many lessons learned is NOW is what we have, NOW is the time to actually DO life long dreams. I crossed “ride a bicycle across America” off, but riding 60 to 80 miles a day across 8 states (including CO, NV and CA) helped my back at first and then not so much. I asked my oncologist to treat me as if my ride across America was the only thing that mattered. I even quit my job to train. He did his job so well the very next week after returning I was back in chemo and CHEMO SUCKS. Have hardly been on a bicycle since and it is driving me NUTS, but new job means I get to pay for the treatments (and my cancer foundation) my life now depends on so all good. Please give your chair to a deserving soul and I will keep logging hours sitting in my favorite chair at the office. You rock though and glad I found your blog and tweets. Good luck with your back and cool idea to give away your present. When I left the Duke Cancer Center on a bicycle with 3,000 miles in front of me I was depending on the kindness of strangers and I was never, never disappointed.

Thanks,
Martin Smith
Director Marketing
Atlantic BT in Raleigh

I NEED this chair. My work area at work is right next to the Sales Team. Lucky for me I get to sit next to the LOUDEST MOST OBNOXIOUS sales rep in the world. I’m not kidding he has a decibel level comprable to a hair dryer, 70 dBs! I have to plug my other ear when im on the phone so i can hear the other person. People on the opposite end of the office say they can hear him as if he was sitting next to them (he isn’t). So here’s why I need the chair.. I stay late because it’s the only time I can get peace and quiet . My rear end hurts for sitting so long in my chair because I’m stuck playing catch up since i have no “quiet time” when it’s normal business hours. If I had this chair I’d be able to sit comfortably during those “off hours” when I’m playing catch up. Thanks for your consideration!

On Thanksgiving weekend, while visiting family, my back began to ache (so, I couldn’t help clear the table), by the end of the weekend, I needed pain killers to sit on the plane. Turns out, by lifting my luggage (shoe addiction) and then sitting on the flight , I cracked one disc and herniated another. In order to sit and even sleep for the next month, I had to rent an old lady recliner chair… the kind that lifts you to a standing position! Do you know how this looks for a single woman? On top of that, I am a PR professional and have been told that for now I should have a standing working station… we know this won’t last, because what PR Pro can spend 10+ hours on their feet, every single day! But the saddest part of my story (which RelaxTheBack can’t help with), is that I had to buy a new non-heel, flats wardrobe. Please help me…

Hi Peter! Thank you for this great opportunity! <3
I can relate to your back pain.
This will not be the best story or the worst story. I don't have the most pain or the least pain.
What I do have is a spine condition that was diagnosed when I was 57. I have scoliosis in my lower spine and that part of the spine is literally twisted front to back. Sitting in a really comfortable chair would be heaven. I hope your back feels better really soon. PS-That was a really nice tribute to your assistant the other day…

Peter – I too have had a back problem for many years. Anybody that has ever had back pain, knows it never leaves…. I have bulging and herniated discs in my L4/L5. Painful everyday. My number one reason to win….. I am a Registered Nurse and without me, many would not be alive! I lift up 400 pound patients on a daily basis!!!! I LOVE what I do, but my back, not so much!!! I am a full time Nurse, part time masters degree student, full time mother of two amazing five year old children, full time wife and housekeeper and my back does not play nice with my busy life!!! Please help me!!!!!

Wow, the cute joke I was going to make about being a newlywed and starting our marriage off on the wrong vertebrae due to back pain clearly isn’t worth winning a chair for compared to someone who went to war for our country. I say give the chair to the Marine. Semper Fi.

Well here goes nothing………

I began my assault when I was just a teen,
Building houses, garages, and decks in between.
My back never hurt so I never did care,
Nor would I read about such a fine chair.

As the years went by, the back torture ensued,
A vertebrae would get tweaked, and I’d shout something rude.
A few doctors here and a couple more there,
Tried lots of pills that made me float through the air.

Some said just stretch, it’ll make it all better,
But no, not for me, I’m a stubborn a** Vetter!
So I kept building houses without regard for my back,
We built them sky high, not just small little shacks.

The day finally came when the luck did run out,
I fell through the rafters and started to shout.
Pretty sure nothing broke as I started to hobble,
Then one more false step and I started to wobble.

The pain came and went, some not all that bad,
Advil stock went right up, from all the tablets I’d had.
To the doctor again, this time they just snickered,
You’d better slow down or you’ll blow it out quicker.

So to the base of the great corporate ladder I crawled,
I made it up the first flight, and became quite appalled.
This backstabbing pain was nothing at best,
To that paperwork bureaucracy and all of their mess!

So from the top rung I leapt once again,
Knowing I’d break before I could bend.
I bought my own desk, and a chair from O-Max,
I sit in it all day, my back just can’t relax!

I like what I do and I’d do it again,
But on this chair that I sit, I just can not win.
When I saw your last post, I came up with this plan,
Write an obnoxiously long poem for Peter Shankman!

So pick me, oh pick me – it’d be my elixir!
I’ll sit with such comfort; you can all take my picture.
RelaxTheBack.com, what a crazy great site!
I’ve said all that I can – pick me please, and goodnight.

I spend a rediculous amount of time in front of my computer and nothing makes my back hurt more than sitting in front of my computer. I broke my back when I was 21….stupid….was on a toboggan with 4 others and hit a rock showing through the snow….we flew in the air and landed very hard…I crushed 2 vertebrae and my back has never been the same. I do yoga, I use a back pillow, I sleep with a pillow under my knees, I stretch…I always have back pain…I would love to have a chair that would take even a bit of that pain away. Thank you for considering me worthy of receiving this chair.

Each day I sit at my computer for 48 hours creating microblogs for underprivileged housewives in Beverly Hills. I toil away because I know they need my help. These poor housewives (metaphorically poor that is. Financially they have more disposable income than the GDP East African countries.) need a forum to vent their frustrations with the limited number of places that allow poodles at lunch time. It’s not easy to deal with the strain of abundance and it’s my job to help them. I sit here on my barn stool (passed down from my great, great, great Grand Aunt the Milkmaid of Monterrey) each and ever day without ceasing coding and designing and fluffing and primping each site to the every whim of their end user. One week I worked on a site for two months without ever leaving my milk stool. My back hurts Peter, and you can help me. But, really… you’d be helping those that I am helping and in turn they would help many others. It’s a trickle down chair benefit.

Sincerely,

Tyler “my back is sore” Jorgenson

PS. My back really is sore. I do build websites for fun and profit. I do chase my 4 kids around and would love to not ache every time I get out of my crappy old POS office chair.

This is me slumped at my desk (E_. I am the illustration of “worst sitting position” on the poster that hangs in my chiropractor’s bathroom. I stare at it as I perform my oblutions before taking my place on the padded table. That would be the table that has resurrected me from horizontal purgatory several times already. Try as I might – and I do try – regardless of starting my day on my “seat bones,” Alexander Technique imaginary string pulling up through the crown of my head, numerous times a day I find myself in this offending position.

Let’s go back to the beginning. Seven years ago I thought it would be fun to roll my husband’s GS-650 down the driveway. Within about a foot of progress the motorcycle dropped to the ground. In panic, I bent down, grabbed a hold of seat and gas tank, and like a mother rescuing her cub from beneath the chassis of a Mac truck, I heaved the metal mass to standing position. Kick stand down, I felt grateful that I had only cracked a side mirror. In my rush of adrenaline, I had forgotten to lift with my knees. I had also obviously forgotten that the bike wouldn’t get any more damaged from sitting there for the 90-seconds it would take to fetch my husband to do it for me, but, whatever. I’m tough like that.

Fast forward to hour-long commutes to state college to finish my bachelor’s degree combined with even longer drives in the opposite direction to take my daughter to the affordable cello lessons. (Mother-of-the-Year anyone?)

Would you be surprised to learn that I only drive standard cars? Not likely. And this is not highway driving, people. This is crossing the state of Vermont on a daily basis for two years. Then more years driving as a newspaper reporter, and now even more driving with my 40-minute one-way commute to work every day. As the pages of my life turn they are strung together by the unfaltering image of me driving here and driving there, feeling age as evidenced by the numbness of pinched sciatic down my right leg to accompany my right shoulder injury. (Oh but I do love to shift gears.)

And so I feel it every conscious moment of every day – the twang of my bulging disc. It sounds pornographic, but it’s not. It keeps me shifting between vigilante and oblivious. It is the reason an onlooker will either describe my posture as prima ballerina or Quasimodo. Neither is correct, and yet each is. Because there is no in between.

This may not be sad, so much as simply pathetic. But (sniff) I could really use a therapeutic chair for my back.

I don’t need the chair, because I teach posture classes for people with back & joint pain. It’s based on studying people WITHOUT back pain (what a concept!). These people are mostly from less industrialized countries, and they maintain the same posture as we all start out with up until age 3. Even in the US, people had healthy posture up until around 1920.

If you want help, check out my brief video on Pain-Free Sitting at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2abFgAcLc8

or you can visit http://www.sonomabodybalance.com or http://www.balancecenter.com.

Peter, I think we can help you!

Sincerely,
Dana Davis
Certified Yoga Teacher
Certified Balance Posture Teacher

Be still my heart – what a chair!

You know, it is tough being a super hero with a spine like mine. In fact, after a bunch of surgeries, my doctors eventually sent me to the National Institute of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, MD for a couple or 3 weeks to see what else could be done for my spine. That trip resulted in 2 electrodes being sunk deeply into my brain which are powered by 2 pacemaker batteries. Now my brain is so programmable, they nicknamed me the Bionic Woman.

Everyone wants to know what happens in airports. I learned the hard way when I set off bells, sirens, and flashing lights. Gheesh. That was a little too exciting. I’m more careful now about which line I get in.

Walking, sleeping, and standing are hard. That is all I can say about the pain, Peter. I know you asked for a sob-story. But I have found that is the worst thing I can do for myself because it reinforces the negative. And anyway, I feel lucky that deep in my brain are two electrodes busy at work, running through cycles 24/7 on behalf of my low-back and left leg.

How else could I be Super Kate?

Peter,

I purposely skipped reading any of the previous entries before writing my bit, but now that I’ve done so, please give this chair to one of the people above. Their need far exceeds mine; I just thought it would be cool to win something.

Thanks for giving us all the opportunity to share a little something with you and for the chance to win a great chair.

Michael

It all started in 1995, when I was in college and slipped stepping out of a cast iron tub, fracturing my L4 transverse process. Your transverse process is that little pointy bone that sticks out on both sides of your vertebra, they look like baby ribs to a degree. After a thrilling ride to the emergency room and encounters with heartless doctors who swore there was nothing wrong with me despite the fact I couldn’t stand or walk without passing out from the pain (seriously, before this incident I thought those pull cords in the bathrooms at hospitals were quite long for their purpose and wondered who could possibly need help in such a hurry), I was sent home as a careless college student who must be seeking free pain killers. I spent weeks laid up on a couch, I couldn’t even sit or walk without excruciating pain. They told me I must have bruised my back. No one could see the fracture on xrays, my muscles were reacting too well and seized to hold things together. Oh, and I was attending school at a university in the Appalachian mountains, in the middle of winter, and the fall happened one week before final exams. I am proud to say I finished all my classes that semester with flying colors due to the endless help of friends that would drive me from building to building an hour before each meeting, just so I had time to ‘walk’ (i.e., shuffle and wince) to the room.

Over six months later, and countless visits to docs and complaining that SOMETHING must be wrong and I wasn’t insane, student health took another set of x-rays and found a split in my right transverse process so large the docs on Grey’s Anatomy (well, back then the popular TV show would have been ER, but you get my point) could even spot it. Over a ¼” wide (that’s the gap between the sharp edges of my bone that had fractured in that tiny little transverse process), and untreated except for pain killers all those months, treatment came in chiropractic care for over a year. Unfortunately, things were too far gone by then, so treatment was more about pain management than solutions.

Of course, once you let a fracture separate like that, the healing doesn’t put it back together like it was…it instead fuses by filling in that nice gap with fresh calcium deposits. So now, I have a transverse process that looks like someone broke Mom’s favorite tea cup and tried to glue it back together with Gorilla Glue. On the bright side, I can tell you when atmospheric pressure changes occur. On the bad side, my back has never been the same and my self adjustments in how I walk, carry things, and sit to relieve the pain and numbness that spreads from my hip and down the side of my right leg over the years led to serious spinal misalignment and a need for ongoing regular spinal care.

Most recently, this past year saw me dislocate a rib as I coughed during a cold, with the doc telling me that my compensating muscle development from the earlier injury was what caused weakness on that area and now I’ll have a tendency to hurt that rib again for the rest of my life. Over a year of care ranging from adjustments to learning how to sit differently and electrical and heat/cold treatments followed to try and get things back to something livable. I now own an electric stimulus machine (believe me, it’s not nearly as cool as it sounds) which allows me to try to stop the spasms without having to go to the doctor every other day. That portable machine has gotten me through countless meetings and other events where proper seating isn’t available. Enter life today, where I work from my home “office” and try to take care of my back as much as possible. I’ve tried every office chair and option I can find and afford, none of them help. I’ve even enlisted a personal trainer for the past 3 years to work on strengthening in a safe manner, but there is only so much she can do given the underlying injury.

Today, I sit in a recliner in my living room to get relief as it is the best of non-ideal choices I have in my home office. When I work at desks or from chairs at other locations that aren’t supportive in the right way, burning pains develop rapidly in my shoulders and spread down my arms and back, making work nearly impossible until I find some manner in which to sit where I can stand the pain. When this happens, even the weight of a winter coat on my shoulders can make me have to sit down from the pain.

Simply put, I’m a small business owner who can’t afford to invest in such a specialized chair, but who would find value every day in all it would bring to me. I spend most of my days in front of a keyboard, from early morning until early the next morning in many cases (the plight of building a business, as you know). My work is in qualitative market research, so I can spend upwards of 60 hours searching out secondary research on a topic as I prep materials for a new project. When I’m not focused on the business, I work part time teaching at a University and grading is almost all online and at my desk. If you haven’t read the drivel that most college students turn in for assignments lately, you can’t quite understand the mental anguish that pairs with the physical pain of sitting and working that long. Everywhere I look, my work has me sitting and struggling. My back is far from ideal, though I do my best to adjust and live with the challenges it provides.

I’m most appreciative of the opportunity to submit my story for consideration in your contest and wish you and all the other back sufferers whose tales are told here only the best. May all those with back issues find relief, and may all those who live with them be spared the wrath of their crankiness. :-) Best wishes to you!

Connie

O.K. Don’t see the earlier comment. Let me try again:

Like the others above, I work in front of a computer all day and often find myself in dire pain as I try to get out of bed in the morning. I’ve been told that I suffer from degenerative disk disease and being self employed and due to poor health insurance, I tend to turn to self-remedies for my back without much success.

But the saddest thing about my back problems is seeing my 8-year-old daughter and my 6-year-old son turn to me with disappointment in their eyes and say, “Daddy, you never give us pony rides.”

As they get older and grow bigger, I feel the loss of a childhood filled with loving pony rides from their Daddy. Maybe…just maybe this chair will help me give a couple more pony rides before it is too late.

I’d love to win this for my husband. His chair at home is an abomination, seriously. I’d upload a pic if I could. It doesn’t adjust up and down any more, and it has literally no padding on the back so he has a pillow strapped to it with a giant green rubberband that they use to keep appliance doors closed, that the movers left 3 years ago. It’s so ugly and he refuses to get a new one, it’s so uncomfortable! Worst of all, it’s in our living room so company can see it. Halp!

I work long hours as a lawyer and by the end of the day my shoulders are always aching. This chair looks like a hug–I am sure it would make me feel better!

I sure could use this wonderful chair for my herniated disk problem. I stand on my feet for 8 hrs or more, and after I am finished with my shift I am so ready to sit down. I wear a back brace all day at work and so ready to take it off when I get home. the only sad thing is I don’t have that wonderful Relax The Back desk chair. I like getting on my computer and I seem to sit a long time and after a while I have to get off my computer due to me not having the best desk chair. I have been thru so many of the walmart chairs and they seem to not do the trick on my back. I am even sitting on a couch pillow. After I get up from my chair I hardley can stand up straight. Well, I hope I have the saddest story!!!! :)

I normally try to limit my complaining to my doctor’s and physical therapists, but you asked for a sob story so here goes :-)

Four years ago I was in the wrong place at exactly the wrong moment. I was walking to a party with some friends when a drunk driver swerved around the cars who’d stopped for the red light and barreled straight at me without ever slowing down. I was hit so hard that my body flew up onto the hood of the car, shattered his windshield, and I was thrown apx. 15 feet before landing on my head. I shattered several bones in my left leg and the right side of my head and was in a coma for several hours. I also suffered a lot of muscle and nerve damage throughout my body due to both the accident and the physical strain using the wheelchair, walker and cane put on my weakened system.

I spent 3 ½ years in rehab full-time and I am grateful to have recently not only returned to work, but to be successfully working on the start-up of my dreams :-)

I’ve been continuing to receive physical and occupational therapy daily to continue regaining my muscle strength and decreasing the pain, but I have only been showing minimal improvements since I started working again. Sitting at my computer has been putting so much strain on my neck, shoulders, back and knees that there are days that I can’t sit or stand due to severe burning sensations or spasms. My therapist has put getting a new chair as a top priority, but my budget doesn’t quite allow for one after being out of work for all this time.

I know that I’m incredibly lucky to have not only survived 4 years ago but to have recovered as much as I have and rebuilding myself, and I’m thrilled to be back at work and building an incredible company. My last hurdle is to find a way to be able to work without harming my body or excruciating pain, and I really hope that you help me overcome this obstacle and achieve my dream.

Did anyone win the chair?