An interesting meeting

I’d like to tell you about the meeting I had last week…

About two years ago I read the book Lower Back Pain, Hernia and Acute Lumbago by Jan Willem Elkhuizen and Menno Iprenburg and found it particularly enlightening on how damage to the intervertebral disc occurs and how this can eventually lead to a hernia.
Using a model of two vertebrae and an intervertebral disc, it became clear how the intervertebral disc functions exactly. You see that the crossed fibers direct the movements of the vertebrae: they function as a kind of three-dimensional cruciate ligaments. This fascinated me! I wanted to see this with my own eyes and contacted the authors to ask if I could order this model. The model turned out not to be ready yet for sale and to cut a long story short I decided after 2 years of waiting to make one myself.

I ordered a hernia model on Amazon and after taking it apart and tinkering for an afternoon with glue and colored strings I had what I wanted. Ah! So this is how vertebrae move relative to each other…
The result of my effort was there and I sent a photo to the authors of the book.

Two months later I was sitting at the dining table at Jan Willem Elkhuizen’s home and he showed me how the fibers (the strings) of the model slide over each other when the vertebrae move relative to each other. According to him, this insight has helped to understand how many back problems – and also a hernia – arise.
We discussed the shortcomings of my model and how we could improve it. He showed me models he once made himself; one of the knee joint showing how the cruciate ligaments control the movement of the joint and another of the control of movement of the atlas. Super interesting stuff!

As a present I brought him a BackMitra and pillow and showed him how to lie on it. He himself used a cut swimming roller for his back, but hey, this felt different!
“I have something for you too”, he said, and gave me a height-adjustable pillow and a long roll for a better sleeping position, which he sells through his webshop mikoala.com. I also received a copy of his book in Dutch and the English translation, the latter had just been published.

I drove away feeling like I was driving away from a friend. Arriving late at home, I immediately installed my new pillows in bed and in the morning I woke up with a wonderfully relaxed neck and lower back. Wow!

Yesterday Jan Willem sent me an app: “My wife and I are big fans of the BackMitra!”

I thought I’d share this with you…

Best regards,
Guy Hamaekers