Most people don’t know when they have a leg length difference but they DO know when they have pain in their low back!
Surgery for lower back pain is not offered nearly as much as it used to be. The reason is because it so often did not help; many patients still had the same pain afterward.
Bill had surgery and still had the same pain after he healed. Years later, he ended up coming to have therapeutic massage and was surprised when I pressed on certain muscles near his waist. They were tight!
Helping those muscles to relax got rid of a lot of his lower back pain. But that wasn’t all.
The pain would have come back in short order unless we figured out what was causing the pain.
In Bill’s case, he had a difference in the lengths of his legs. One was almost 2″ shorter than the other!
When you are walking around on legs that have that much difference (or even much less) you will certainly develop low back pain. You cannot avoid it.
When I noticed this and explained it to Bill he said, “Huh. No doctor ever told me that. Do you know who told me that? My tailor.”
Bill’s tailor always had to shorten one pant leg. His TAILOR knew. His DOCTORS did not.
Looking for the cause of low back pain just wasn’t part of their training. Fixing symptoms was.
Please do not think for one minute that I am being disrespectful to doctors and surgeons. I love them! They can do tremendous things that save peoples’ lives. But sometimes they do surgeries that truly aren’t needed.
So how do you fix a short leg if that is the cause of your lower back pain?
It’s really pretty simple. Figure out approximately how much one leg is shorter. Get the shoes for that leg only lifted. That means put a lift under the whole sole of the shoe. A shoe repairman or cobbler can do this.
Assess your posture in the mirror.
Stand as straight as you can facing the mirror directly. Point your toes straight ahead.
Look at your shoulders. Is one lower?
Are your fingers lower toward the floor on one side?
Look at your belt or waistband. Is one side lower?
If you can see that one side is lower, that’s your shorter leg side.
You can guesstimate the approximate difference of leg length by standing on a magazine or notebook while looking into the mirror again. Put the foot of the leg that you suspect may be shorter on the notebook. Point your toes straight ahead and stand as straight as you can.
Assess your posture in the mirror again.
Look in the mirror to see if your head is directly over your midline rather than off to one side.
See if your shoulders appear more level rather than one lower. Is your waistband or belt level now?
Pay attention to how you’re FEELING. Do you feel less pressure in your lower back? Or anywhere?
You can add or subtract pages until you feel ‘balanced.’
You may still want to have therapeutic massage by a skilled therapist to release muscles that are stuck in the old position.
Surgery should always be your very last option to consider and only if the severity of your low back pain warrants it. And only if you are sure that a leg length difference is not the cause of your lower back pain.
