Treatment can restore balance and health. But how can this be maintained, is it necessary to have constant, regular treatment?
First you have to try and identify the causes of the disease. Usually there is no single cause, but in the course of the treatment it should become clear that a number of changes can be made to make a relapse less likely.
These include changes to diet and living habits, and particularly to patterns of exercise and rest. Most people's work involves repeated patterns of tension and movement, using the same muscle groups in the same way. The body becomes used to a pattern of posture and use which is far from ideal, but which is so much part of the "background" to the individual, that it is no longer even recognized.
The trouble with most forms of exercise is that they are carried out from within the pattern of use that feels normal, and don't challenge or change this. So, for example, if you work out in the gym using weights or machines, the different muscle groups of the body are strengthened, and stamina and endurance increased. This is good; but, there is little attention to making different muscle groups coordinate together to provide the kind of flowing movement required, say, to turn, bend suddenly and catch a pencil falling off a desk. And this kind of movement is what real life involves, and very often the kind that causes major back problems.
Sports use the body in a flowing, coordinated way, but again only from within the pattern that exists. The more successful sportsmen and women usually already have, as well as talent, patterns of use which are relatively less distorted than the average. If their pattern becomes altered by injury or overuse, they can find that even though an injury seems healed, their game still suffers. Good treatment corrects this, but it must be maintained.
What is needed is a system of exercise which relaxes and stretches muscle groups which are held tight and contracted, and also strengthens areas of weakness. One which takes and works with the body as a whole, not as a series of parts, and which involves the mind and attention with the movement. Examples are Taijiquan and Qigong (T'ai Chi Ch'uan, Chi Kung), and Yoga. Perhaps the most easily accessible for westerners, and a system which offers a highly intelligent way of varying work for individual needs, is the Yoga taught by Sri T K V Desikachar (see Links).