Dear LPG,

I was flicking through the channels very early one morning, a by-product of not being able to sleep in the early hours these days, and I found what is supposed to be the answer to some types of chronic back pain. 

I discovered a salesman explaining the benefits of an inversion bed for joint-pain sufferers.   I stopped to have a listen because so many of my friends, just like me, spend a lot of time talking about our aging backs and the pain that they have to offer as we get older.

The man on the television explained that, for some, lying on your back in a position where your body is straight, but your feet are higher than your head, even at a very slight angle, while your legs are secured so that gravity causes your whole body to be stretched, can offer some relief from those aches and pains in the hip, back, and legs.  The demonstration showed that experiencing this therapy requires little actual exercise or effort on the part of the person taking advantage of its healing qualities.  A bonus from what I could see was the fact that the therapy takes about a couple of minutes per day.

I often feel that so many of the products advertised on TV or the internet are specifically being offered to attract the young, but I have always thought that age is relative and when it comes to what our bodies can achieve depends much more on its physical condition at any given time of your life, and that we oldies are not a different species from the young.  I suppose while my back is beginning to slow me down a little, I still enjoy a gentle session of aerobic exercise; something that I really want my back to continue to allow me to do for as long as possible. 

But I have to say that, even though I am a relatively young pensioner, I am learning about backache all too fast and wondered if it would work for me.  My next stop was the internet where I thought I would find a bit more information and I was not disappointed. 

There is a lot of it out there and the first thing I learned is that if you have any problems with your eyes or blood pressure, even the slightest hanging angle is not likely to be good for you and I suspect that those two contraindications alone will limit the numbers of over 65’s who will derive any benefit from trying this. 

But, just in case there are any other LPG readers who saw what I saw, it is worth learning what the internet has to say about the pros and cons of trying this back relief method…

EB, Catford

EB has found quite a lot of information about these beds (tables) and suggests that if any reader who has seen a demonstration of how an inversion table works, takes a good look at all the facts before investing in one…

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