I don’t know what I did to my back, but it began hurting on Monday. There was no event where it clearly immediately started hurting, the pain just kind of snuck up on me until I realized it had become fairly severe. (Lower back–right where it joins with the hip.)
Three days later and it hasn’t gotten any better. Ibuprofin seems to have no effect at all on the pain level.
I can walk and move etc, but it all hurts, enough to elicit a wince and reluctance to move.
So after three days of no change I suppose a doctor’s visit is in order? Or is it? What can realistically be done about this? Isn’t the doctor basically going to tell me to take it easy and wait for it to get better? Maybe give me some stronger pain meds but I don’t know that that’s important…
Unless you’re urinating blood or are on the verge of collapse, an ER visit probably isn’t warranted, but if you’re in that much pain and don’t know why, see a doctor.
Sometimes even a slight, otherwise inconsequential fall can mess up your back for months. Happened to me, I fell a couple, three feet off a low wall. Three months of back pain and limited movement. And I thought I was in great shape at the time.
Also, not to freak you out or anything, but a friend of mine had, unbeknownst to himself, a case of esophageal cancer that spread to his spine. He was scheduled for surgery on an unrelated matter and when he showed up, they said, “whoa, hold on a minute here (or words to that effect), there’s something else going on with you.” Three months later he was gone. All he knew was that he had significant back pain.
Not to be overly dramatic about it, but anyway I think it’s a good policy to check things out.
If this is the first time this has happened to you, yeah, see a doc. It might be something awful, like kidney stones. Or it might just be “lumbago.” (“My back hurts.”)
I suffer from occasional nasty bouts of lumbago – pain that doesn’t seem to have any real cause. The first time, I saw my doc, and she gave me prescription strength ibuprofen.
After that, I never bothered to visit my doc. Seems there’s nothing she can do, and consumer-strength painkillers help just about the same as 'scrip-strength.
Good luck with your pain. If it is “just” lumbago, stretching exercises, performed very gingerly (!) can help a lot. I also always felt better after walking a mile.
I would definitely suggest trying stretching exercises first. My lower back was giving me a really hard time last week, and I did a google search for lower back stretches and came up with this:
I did these a couple of times a day for a few days in a row. They relieved the pain a lot, and I’m not feeling any pain in the last couple of days.
It could be a staph infection in your spine and any second now, it’s going to eat all the way through and you will be paralyzed for life! Or, it could be a muscle strain. You just never know. I wouldn’t go to the ER but it never hurts to see your doctor. They have kids to put through college, too.
Something similar happened to me 6 months ago. I awoke one morning with excruciating pain in my hip, which has since spread to my lower back. I’ve seen doctors, gotten injections in my hip and spine, gotten x-rays, MRIs and CT scans, and received physical therapy. The pain has settled in my lower back, and I can barely walk. No pain killers have any effect. The diagnosis, after 6 months of agony, is spinal stenosis (narrowing of the passage the spinal cord has to go through), and hopefully I’ll be getting surgery soon.
See a doctor who can refer you to an appropriate specialist. It may not be something that gets better on its own. Hope you have good insurance.
I had a “snuck up on me” back ache a couple years ago. Couldn’t get out of bed it hurt so bad, and I’m just a pup in my 30s.
I went to the doc, it was “just” the nurse practitioner but I find them to be wonderful caretakers. She had me do some movements and determined that by the way I could/couldn’t move that it was just a muscle pull. She did have me have an x-ray just to be on the safe side but that didn’t change the diagnosis.
I got muscle relaxers and told to take naproxen, I think. I don’t recall any pain meds. I am not one to take too many pills but I did call for a refill of muscle relaxers once I ran out because I did need more. It did take quite a while to heal but after a day or so I was able to at least sit in my chair to work.
I assume she also gave me a sheet of stretches to do, too.
Anyway, even if the problem is just a tweaked muscle, muscle relaxers will help you heal. If you’re cramped up in pain all the time, it won’t heal as quickly and/or you might keep re-injuring it.
And then also it could be any of the above-mentioned near-death scenarios too.
So go to the doc, have him/her decide whether further action is needed and at LEAST they will give you muscle relaxers to get you on your way.
I’ve had that happen to me a couple of times. In both cases, a couple of days of muscle relaxers worked wonders. If you haven’t already, you might try heat and/or ice packs.
It could be a number of things an urine infection can cause pain in your back , I once got a virus in my neck and that hurt like hell. Trapped gas can cause pain too . If the pain doesn’t get better it would be a good idea to have your back checked out.
You can get Robaxisal with Aspirin (that’s a brand name) in Canada, but in the USA, they’re RX only.
Over the past few years, I had pain around my right shoulder blade off and on, and my doctor agreed with me that it might be a good idea to check out my gallbladder even though I had no GI issues. An x-ray and ultrasound were both normal, and it turned out to be an intermittently pulled muscle.
Lower back pain could really be caused by a number of things, though. Why wouldn’t you want to know what the cause is before going straight to a certain kind of therapy?
Robaxisal with Aspirin, Robaxacet with acetaminophen, and Robax with ibuprofen - all OTC in Canada.
I was surprised when I tried to get them in a US pharmacy once and the pharmacist said she knew what they were, but they were not available OTC in the US.
I just remember the one with aspirin (which is not a brand name in the States) being OTC when I was visiting there a few years ago. Didn’t know you can get them with acetaminophen (AKA paracetamol) or ibuprofen.
