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From: xchar@alice.UUCP (Charles S. Harris)
Newsgroups: net.consumers,net.med
Subject: Re: British Design "Back" Chair
Message-ID: <3192@alice.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 24-Dec-84 00:50:47 EST
Article-I.D.: alice.3192
Posted: Mon Dec 24 00:50:47 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 25-Dec-84 02:39:35 EST
References: <993@teddy.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 20


     My wife has back trouble due to a "slipped" disk. 
She bought one of those cheap, imitation back chairs (on sale
at $30 at Drug Fair) and assembled it.  It wasn't too bad to
look at, but in only 15 min of using it in front of the terminal,
she started to feel pain in her sciatic nerve (the nerve which
goes down the back of the leg and is often affected in cases
involving disk problems).  The discomfort persisted for hours
after she got off the chair.  We've returned it, and now wonder
whether the problem was caused by the inferior design of the
chair, the fact that my wife is short (5'2") and the chair
wasn't adjustable, or other factors.  Do back chairs help in
ALL types of back trouble--muscular, disk, etc.--or just for
certain kinds of back trouble?  Would 8 hours of sitting in a
back chair, in the only position that's possible, be any better
than 8 hours of sitting in a regular chair, in a variety of
positions?  Has anyone with disk problems ever tried out the
$175 Balans chair for a long period of use?
     --Charlie Harris, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ
      (allegra|harpo|ulysses)!alice!xchar