Every once in a great while, every 6 months or so, I’ll do something seemingly innocuous, yet sudden- sneeze, run upstairs, stand up quick, answer the phone- and a muscle or two in my lower back will seize up- ouch!- and I’ll effectively be incapacitated for the next few hours to days. Eventually the pain and stiffness will go away, like a sprained muscle does. The doctors invariably prescribe anti-inflammatory painkillers and/or muscle relaxants and rest, which help, but things seem to heal quicker if I slowly work things out, walk around, instead of lying in bed.
Chiropractic and massages seem to help healing too, but my real thought is, what can I do to prevent this from happening in the first place? I practice yoga every other day to keep things stretched out. Before I was in school, I had time to do some weightlifting to hopefully strengthen my lower back, but that really didn’t seem to make a difference.
It’s not like I’m lifting widescreen TVs all day; I’ve sure learned how to lift things carefully, and I don’t lift heavy things all that often anyway. It’s the stupid little things that do it. I’m thinking being an ectomorph doesn’t help things either. 
I’m thinking my lower back muscles are just simply weak, and maybe I need some kind of exercise that targets them exclusively. Any other ideas?
I’m sure you’ve heard this before… work on strengthening your core. That includes a lot of abdominal work. Also, if you’re significantly overweight, that too can have a negative impact.
Other ideas… how’s your mattress? Your posture? Your office chair?
take it seriously.
trust me.
my back was always aching, and i just wrote it off as too much time hunched over a drafting table or whatever. well, one time my ack hurt a little more than usual. i thought, hey, i’m a strong, young (21 at the time), and relatively healthy (maybe 185 lbs, 6’2") guy, it’ll go away.
well, in a week i couldn’t straighten my back any more than maybe 90 degrees, and i was taking vicodin by the fistfull. no insurance, so we tried everything before surgery, including a chiropractor (intense fucking pain).
well, after a month of being relegated to the FLOOR, i couldn;t even get in a bed, we had an mri. it was a huge ruptured disc. so i had surgery, and only maybe a year ago started feeling almost normal. and i’m 28 now.
i’m not trying to scare you, but you can have serious back problems seemingly out of the blue. so lose weight, exercise, all that stuff, because you don’t want to go through surgery.
Don’t screw around with this.
Ivylad is currently on workers’ comp, and after three surgeries the doctors said, “You’ll have to live with the pain” and installed a morphine pump. On good days he needs a cane. On bad days he needs a walker. On really bad days he can’t get out of bed.
He’s 41.
Go to your doctor. Now.
I feel {and have felt} your pain: I sneezed once, all my back muscles went into spasm, and I was lying on my back for a week, moaning feebly.
As per previous posts, take this seriously: don’t know how much weight you’re carrying, but shed it if it’s too much - if you think five kilos isn’t much, try lifting a sack of rice weighing that much, then figure how much strain that’s putting on your lower back.
I found a chiropractor good for temporary relief, and getting an ergonomic chair {at home and work, even if you have to pay for it yourself} helped a lot, but I found exercise worked the best.
I went to a gym and told them I wanted to strengthen my back to avoid pain, and they devised a really good program to target the muscles down there: no heavy duty iron pumping or crunches, just a gradual series of mostly machine exercises to improve posture and tone up what was out of whack - I’d avoid the free weights, since if you’re not used to them your body tends to “cheat” and throw the stresses on other areas - mostly your lower back - machines allow you to focus only on the areas that need work.
It wasn’t especially expensive - just regular monthly gym fees, with an initial assessment and regular evaluations included: shop around and talk to a few if you’re not sure if they have what you want - you’ll soon get a good idea if they know what they’re talking about or not. And, of course, it’ll help you get rid of any extra weight you’re carrying.
I used to have a similar problem to yours with persistent and recurrent back pain - things would be OK for a few months, then I’d throw it out again - but since I started at the gym a couple of years ago I’ve had no major problems.
And yeah, last but not least TALK TO YOUR DOCTOR first.
I have similar problems. There I am 24 years old, newly married, sneeze …ow! suddenly I know the meaning “to throw one’s back out” Talk about fun honeymoons.
In the past ten years the problems have waxed and waned, with 3 pregnancies contributing their effects. It all climaxed when my youngest was 9 mounths, 18lbs. and I went strawberry picking while wearing him in a front carrier. By the evening of the next day, I couldn’t walk. Could not get up off the family room floor where the spasm had left me. It was one of the most painful and humbling experiences I have ever had.
And yet, with no intervention other than a phone call to my parents I was walking by noon the next day. I called them because they both had back problems too and I wanted to know if anything like this had ever happened to them and should I go to the emergency room.
They said oh yeah, not being able to walk, sure, happened to both of us, we got better. My anxiety was somewhat relieved and I found I could walk (with great pain still) within a few minutes.
I tell this story to illustrate my own experience that anxiety can play a huge role in recovery. Actually you sound pretty sane about your back pain.
After this episode, I got a bunch of books out of the library about back pain and found out that you can be in excruciating pain and yet have nothing damaged. That had always been the main thing, not that I hurt so much, but what did the pain mean? Well, if the answer was …nothing much, I could deal much better.
So with some hesitancy, I would not suggest that you run to a doctor. I mean, yes, if you’re in horrible unabating pain, run to the doctor, but if you’re just trying to prevent the next attack …IMHO…
Exercise…walk everyday or as often as you can. Targeted exercises are good, but if you can’t get around to them, at least walk.
When injured, return to whatever level of activity is possible as soon as possible
Don’t worry, anxiety can really make it much worse.
Sometime last month, I coughed, and whatever happened pinched my sciatic nerve more painfully than ever before. I could barely walk, and the pain - like the most intense cramp - would come on suddenly. The only relief was to lie on the floor on my right side with my left leg (the one affected) bent and pulled to my chest. The cramp went away gradually after maybe a week and a half. The sciatic pain remained.
During that time, I noticed all I could feel in my left foot was pins and needles. The lower back and sciatic pain continued. My foot “dropped,” and that caused me to walk with a club foot. This in turn made me sprain my ankle. I put on an “air cast” brace which helped stabilize my ankle, and started taking anti-inflammatory doses (800 mg or more) of ibuprofen along with OTC muscle relaxants. (Some of the relaxants available only with a prescription in the U.S. are OTC here.) My ankle’s since healed but only after I limped quite severely for a few weeks.
I went to the clinic at school, where they rushed me ahead of the line. The doctor examined me, freaked out, and sent me to the ER. I waited, and waited, and waited. Finally I saw a doctor who told me the same thing, and said I needed an MRI. Now, socialized medicine can be lovely, but waiting for an MRI can be long.
The tentative diagnosis was a herniated disc and possible nerve damage (evidenced by the pins and needles). The latter I knew would go away, and it has. I still need to get an MRI, as I’ve been having these kinds of problems for quite some time now. I work out regularly and have strong abdominals, yet the problems persist.
In any case, I’m going to see my own doctor, and he’ll refer me to whatever specialist and/or send me for an MRI. I’m hoping in the meantime I can get some Flexeril, which is stronger than the OTC muscle relaxants, and naproxen, which is not available without a prescription in Canada.
I find it unsettling that all of these recent problems came on from a quick cough.
I’ll second working on strengthening your abs. Also, yoga is good, very good- I recently started doing it again after a few months of slacking put me back into hideous pain, and the improvement in just a few days is astounding. Bellydance is also good for keeping those muscles loose. So is good old fashioned bipedal locomotion.
You might want to consult a personal trainer or yoga instructor to find out what you can do to strengthen the muscles in your low back and butt, as well. You might also want to see a doctor or physical therapist and find out if you have a leg length discrepancy- having one leg shorter than the other can be a major contributing factor.
On a more personal note, I’ve had back problems off and on for about fifteen years, but they’ve gotten major in the last five. My current bout of problems started when I changed jobs and was working swing shift. I have a hard time sleeping during the day, and would basically lay in bed until my back muscles went into spasm, then one night at work, I leaned over ever so slightly and something in my low back went “pop”. I felt movement, heard the sound…
A good chiropractor put me back together, but over time my income went into decline, and having no health insurance, so did my back. The fact that my right leg is about 3/8" longer than the left does not help the situation, especially since at work I’m on my feet all day. I got quite a bit of relief just by putting a lift in my left shoe to balance myself out, but I still have quite a bit of pain.
My mom teases me that my back is “high maintainance”. If I don’t do a minimum of a half hour of exercise twice a day (ab and low back strenghtening stuff and some stretching in the morning, yoga at night), it takes about a month for me to be re-admitted to hell. Unfortunately, I am a very lazy person, and will slack off whenever I think I can get away with it. When the pain gets bad enough, I “get religion” and get back into my exercise routine.