'Goodbye, Waist Illness'

Dr. Chang Il-tae, director of the Nanuri Hospital in Seoul, who is also known as "Mr. Waist,"published a book entitled, "Goodbye, Waist Illness."The orthopedic surgeon says about 90 percent of diseases involving the spine are caused by ignorance and false pride on the part of patients. The doctor, who has treated many patients suffering from waist pain all his life, should know. "llnesses related to the spine and rheumatism run parallel to the cultural development and increases in the number of waist patients show it,"said the doctor, adding most female disk patients are in their 20s and 30s, which is surprising because these illnesses were once confined to old women.
What causes it? Its computers, not traffic accidents, the doctor answered. These women spend a lot of time on computers in the same position and in the wrong position at that. Eventually the spine can no longer stand it and screams, which is a sad scene for a computer strong country!
Changes in lifestyle have been one of the causes. Soft beds and sofas in addition to chairs saw a marked increase in modern life. They watch TV, read books and meet people on sofas and chairs. They don't have to move too much. Look at yourself, he said, most of the time, you are either lying down on a sofa or leaning against it.
The same thing is true with physical exercise. They just jump into doing physical exercises because they heard that they are good for health. They include those with weak spines; they try to swim and play golf, without knowing that they could potentially hurt their waists soon. You have to be careful about doing physical exercise because you have to select ones that don't hurt your waist and you have to do a little preparatory exercise before doing full exercise courses unless you want to pay a dear price for not being careful enough and ignoring basic principles. "Most spinal diseases occur slowly due to repeated to damage to spines. So maintaining proper positions that come from a good lifestyle can prevent waist pain and damage to spines, even if they are damaged, the cure is simple,?the doctor said.
He said he feels very sorry that people become injured not knowing how simple exercises could protect them from injury.
The book is meant to tell those people how to avoid developing spinal diseases and to live a healthy life as one of Chang's long-term plans. Chang said spinal diseases rarely threaten life, but they have a great impact on life, which is one of the reasons that he wrote the book. He wanted to tell people how important the spine is to them and at the same time, to reduce the pain of the patients. Through the book, he said, patients become part of the treatment team and participate in making decisions on the selection of treatment methods, while the general public would be part of preventive medicine.
Domestic treatment of the spinal disk has had a high success rate, high enough to be recognized as world-class. But many patients worry about recurrences and after effects from surgery. Some say you get a break at best when you get a spinal surgery. Many think waist illnesses are all spine related. This was why he wanted to write a book and tell them the truth. An excessive fear for spinal diseases doesn? help to cure the disease, and sometimes, makes the disease to grow worse, he said.
People don't care too much about their waists, but when they get sick in their waists, they get shaken with too much fear because of misunderstanding and Chang's book is designed to correct the situation. Dr. Chang performed more than 8,000 spinal surgeries from 1993 to July of 2004; the largest number in a short period with a more than 90 percent success rate. Furthermore, he first performed "one-day exit neck disk surgery"to minimize hospital costs for patients, which is why he got the nickname "Mr. Waist." nw

Dr. Chang Il-tae.