Living With Spondylolisthesis: A Full-Color Manga Guide to Easing Lower Back Pain

Still putting up with your back pain because someone told you it was just your age?

Standing at the kitchen sink, her lower back grew heavy. Walking home from the shops, she stopped again and again. At night, every turn in bed woke her. Painkillers and pain patches had quietly become household essentials.

The day my wife was finally examined, the orthopedic doctor said: We can't put it back the way it was. But there are many ways to ease it and to slow it down. Her fourth lumbar vertebra had slipped forward, with a sideways curve layered on top of it.

This book is what we built from that day, drawn as sixty-five pages of full-color manga. Where exactly the bone slips. Why arching your back narrows the tunnel the nerves run through, and why rounding it helps. How to do the three exercises a physical therapist taught us. Which everyday movements at the sink, with the shopping, with the laundry and in bed to change — each shown as before and after. And the warning signs you must never wait out.

You will meet Akane, who lives with it; Minoru, her husband, who tells the story; Dr Toda, who was honest with them; Minami, the physical therapist; and their daughter Yui.

On the days the pain is bad, there is no energy left for reading. On those days you can still turn pages of pictures. That is why this book took the shape it did. For anyone living alongside their own back, and for the people who want to help.

Note: this book combines one family's experience with general health information. It is not a substitute for diagnosis or treatment, and how symptoms and treatments play out varies from person to person. Please talk to a physician or physical therapist about exercise and treatment.