Common-Sense Health: Where Is Your Wallet?

Keeping things balanced is important, and I try to do that in the Memos I write. Usually I tackle issues that are serious with significant health implications, but life is to be enjoyed so this week, we’ll lighten up before a holiday by talking about a guy’s wallet. And this is also about balance.

When Paula and I had dinner with friends this weekend, the husband talked about the physical therapy for back pain he’s been doing. The exercises have worked, but he chided me: “You didn’t tell me my wallet could affect my back.” Oops. He’s correct.

If you have a wallet in your back pocket and you sit most of the day, the force of the chair on the wallet can compress the sciatic nerve, and voila, you may have pain shooting down your lower back and the back of your leg. A recent paper talked about three men with lower back pain that was due to their wallet.

The simplest solution is to reduce the size of your wallet or just carry what you actually need on a clip in your front pocket or in your jacket: a picture ID, a credit card, your Costco card, and some cash. What more do you need? Membership cards? I have an app on my phone that shows my gym membership so I don’t need to carry that card.

If you have lower back pain, I would recommend you get a referral to a physical therapist to find out how you should deal with it; there may be different muscle groups involved depending on your specific anatomy. But if you’re sitting on a fat wallet that throws off your balance, changing that could make a difference.

How could your pillow affect your hip? I’ll let you know on Thursday.

What are you prepared to do today?