I had a good time at this most recent weekend’s Dallas Dopefest.
But, I got bit.
I don’t know if it was the road trip or the odd seating arrangements, but by the time I got back to my hotel, I was in pain. A lower back pain that prevented sleep (no more than 60 seconds bearable in any one position) presented. After a night of that the prospect of driving from Dallas to Houston was not desireable.
But it was unavoidable. So, it was done.
On to the question. This caused me to ponder the predicaments of my familiars, and on first pass, it sure seemed to me that, in my experience, males experience back problems significantly more often than females.
If I call upon my experience, I can think of eight men and one woman who have resorted to back surgery.
Generally women have a lower center of gravity due to those child-bearing hips, but they’re also dragging those boobs around (and we’re all happy about that ;)). So maybe there is a load-bearing differential.
So am I imagining it, or do men really experience more back problems than women?
I don’t know the answer to this, so I shouldn’t be a bad role model and post to this thread. Oh well. Do as I say, not as I do. My WAG is that men tend to lift very heavy things, and tend to lift them wrong. They also get pushed while young into sports like football, which lends itself to back injuries. Women aren’t generally as likely to overdo it, lifting and carrying things that are too heavy. I wouldn’t expect that women are any more likely to use proper lifting technique, though.
I weight train and generally have no trouble. The times I suffered from lower back pain were during pregnancy and while my kids were babies. I try not to give advice to pregnant women (they get more than enough), but one piece of advice I do give is to take care of their backs. It kind of goes with the territory with pregnancy. But when you (moms and dads) have babies, you have to be particularly careful getting babies in and out of carriers and carseats. There is a unique lift/twist maneuver that is sure to throw out your back if you’re not careful.
Okay, call this a public service announcement. Carry on.
I’m with Jill. Men are more likely to just bend over and hoick the 19" TV set up off the stand (“I can handle this”) and tote it over to the Playstation cart, whereas a woman (like me) who doesn’t feel she has to prove anything is more likely to try to figure out a way to scoot the Playstation cart over to the TV stand and slide the thing over instead of lifting it (even if it takes longer and involves moving the coffee table AND the couch, but that’s scooting them, not lifting, and I can do that).
I see a lot of people with back pain; I’d say the cause in a lot of cases seems to be car accidents or without an obvious trigger more often than do to stupid lifting by us challenged males who deny our own limits. Back surgery for back pain does not have a very enviable track record in cases without a very obvious anatomical cause such as spinal stenosis which represents less than 5% of cases. While there may be more males with back pain than females I’d be surprised if the ratio was much more than 3:2.
Dr. Hamilton Hall is still the authority on this area, and as he says, back pain tends to get better with time. Mechanical back pain is generally worse of movement and rarely radiates to below the knees. If you tell the emergency room doctor the pain does not go below the knees, chances are he’ll tell you to take ibuprofen, do lumbar stretching exercises, take other analgesics, apply ice or heat (for inflammation and stiffness respectively) and may recommend a physiotherapist, massage (makes the patient feel better anyway) or chiropractor (good for back problems in some patients if they stay away from your neck and don’t treat your asthma).
Pain that radiates to the toes and feels like pins and needles, electricity or numbness is likely neurogenic, although several physical maneuvers can be used to find malingerers. Saddle (around the butt) anaesthesia and loss of rectal sphincter control are serious signs and should be treated on an emergent basis in the presence of neurogenic back pain.