Mostly I’ve heard people claim this in episodes of TV shows, so I’m not sure exactly what has happened to the sufferer, but I know that real people claim to have “put their back out” too. What is going on? Muscle strain? Spine out of alignment? Really, what’s “out”? Can they actually move unlike they protest on TV, or is the pain/immobility really so bad that they can’t stand straight and/or walk? I’ve hurt my back plenty of times, but not to the point where I can only lie on the floor and look at the ceiling like a girl on one of the latest episodes of The L.A. Complex…
So, what should I assume of someone who is making this claim?
I’ve done it once. It’s nothing like “regular” achy back pain where you can still walk and just feel a bit grumpy about it. I really, honestly, couldn’t stand or walk or turn from one side to another unassisted. I couldn’t even move my arms and legs while laying in bed without thinking about it, planning it, and gasping for breath and crying tears while doing it. That was really weird - have you ever thought about moving your leg six inches to the left? I mean, how to do it? That’s what I had to do - it was like all the muscle memories and unconscious propioception was just gone. I could feel every muscle in my body, and they all screamed at me.
What sort of ridiculous death defying heroics lead to my “throwing my back out?” I reached for a pen. There was a cup of pens at about shoulder height, and I reached for one, and I felt something “pop” and it hurt really really really bad and I fell over. The pain clearly came before the fall. The people in the room with me (two paramedics, how handy) said I went suddenly white in the face in the moment before I fell. I didn’t lose consciousness, but I knew I wasn’t going to be getting back on my feet alone.
Three days of bedrest and ibuprofen (which did nothing for the pain, but I kept taking it to try and relieve any inflammation) and finally a massage therapist made it all better. She did something called a “psoas release” which is profoundly unpleasant in its own way, but relieved the back pain 80% within an hour. So I believe mine, at least, was muscular in origin.
So yes, it is that bad.
Some people slip discs or pinch nerves or other things that can show up on imaging, but back pain is one of those things that is often mysterious, and assumed to be muscular, because it goes away when it goes away, as often as not by doing nothing at all.
It can also happen without any very serious pain, I think. My mother, who used to have a lot of back problems, once did it right in front of me, just by getting up from a chair and taking a couple of steps. She did not appear to be in more than fairly moderate pain, but her range of movement suddenly became very restricted. She could not sit down again, and had to prop herself up against some furniture until the ambulance arrived, but she remained fairly cheerful. I asked whether she really could not move normally, or whether it just be extremely painful to do so. She said it was the former.
On another occasion (when I was much younger, so I do not remember the details so well) I think she had a similar but much more painful episode, rather like what WhyNot recounts. I remember her lying down flat on her back on the living room floor - I think she stayed there for few days - and the doctor coming round and giving her what I think was morphine.
But people also use the expression (I have used it myself) just for moderate or even fairly mild back pain that has a sudden onset. I think that it is a sudden onset, with no very obvious cause, that makes something “putting your back out” as opposed to just having a bad back.
I have a herniated disk in my lower back. I have had it for years with the usual soreness and occasional pain that most people have. However, back in April I expeienced “throwing my back out” for the first time. It was basically a massive back spasm caused by thr ruptured disk. I literally could not move anything below the waist. It was as if I were paralysed. The pain was greater than anything I have ever experienced by far. It was complelety disabling. After 4 hours in the ER and a few generous doses of morphine and muscle relaxers I was able to take faw steps into and out of a reclined wheelchair. It took about two weeks to return to near normal
I’m a healthy, fit, jogging, weight lifting man in his early thirties. Shit that this can happen to just about anyone. Scary thing is it could happen to me again without warning at any time. When it happened I was just bending over to pick up a sock from the floor. It is basically a random event. It is a real phenomena, and it sucks when it happens to you. The worst part is the immobility. There is nothing you can do but lie there.
In my case it’s a lower back spasm. Just about anything can trigger it, and there’s no telling how long it’ll last. It’s extremely painful, not like a regular back pain, and the only things that can help are bed rest and massage. The first time I had one, I was in my late 20’s, and literally couldn’t stand up straight. I was hunched over like a 90-year-old with osteoporosis.
The first time I did it, it was by sleeping on a fold-out bed. The pain was bad enough to make me nauseous, far beyond the back pain I routinely get when I wake up after sleeping in a bad position. It was almost the difference between when I turn my ankle a bit by stepping wrong and when I broke my ankle. I was pretty incapacitated for a few days, and finally a doctor gave me some industrial-strength muscle relaxants.
I did it a few years back carrying a TV into my grandmother’s place. That evening it started to get sore. By bedtime it hurt. I took some tylenol.
At 2:30 AM I woke up in agony. I was sleeping on the couch at my parents’ and realized I needed to go to the hospital but I could not figure out how to get off the couch. It look me a good 15, 20 minutes to manage that simple act.
All it was was pulled muscles. It doesn’t take much.
According to my athletic therapist, most adults over 30 have one or more spinal disks bulging, dessicated or possibly even minorly herniated (“slipped” disks fall into this). Our spines SUCK and fail from wear and tear and sports and sneezing and any other random thing we can do. Often such movements will cause the bulge or rupture to irritate a nerve which will cause muscle spasms which eventually subside. Sometimes the pain never goes away 100%, sometimes there are other lasting effects due to the herniation (I can’t feel part of my leg, and it’s not likely to ever return).
At times I thought I’ve put my back out. I’m sitting there on the couch and it’s so painful to stand up I have to gird myself, count to three, and launch myself upright. Or call someone to give me a hand standing up. But reading here, I guess that is NOT putting my back out!
Watching a grown man (me!) cry in pain while his wife tries to help him stand up from sitting on the toilet, THAT is a bad back. I once ended sitting sitting on the stairs between my first and second floor for more than an hour until someone came home after I was hit with a spasm.
I’ve done it once…and yes, it’s every bit as painful as indicated on TV. I slept weird, then bent over in just the right way for something to completely seize. I couldn’t straighten my back at all, and twisting, bending, turning…all of it sent extremely painful shoots of pain from the seized part all the way up my back. Eventually (after about 20 minutes), I was able to right myself, but spent the next few hours not moving much while using a heating pad on my back. After about 4-5 hours, I was mostly fine.
From what I’ve seen happen to others, my back episode was extremely minor, as it resolved itself in a morning, but my lord did it hurt. I can’t imagine actually slipping a disc or something. My dad did that when he was in his 40s when we were on vacation, and he was basically unable to bend his back until we got home 2-3 days later and he went to the doctor and they were able to realign his spine somewhat to take pressure off the slipped disc and get it back in place. He then spent the next 2-3 months going to a chiropractor to get everything back to normal. I can’t even imagine the pain that must be given the little preview I had.
I was a happy-go-lucky 27 year old washing his mountain bike after a ride and upon lifting the bike by the saddle and turning the crank I became a guy with a bad back. I primed it by moving pianos for the previous six months. I picked myself up off the ground and hobbled to the nearest bed and spent the rest of the afternoon straightening out my legs and back. It was kind of like an earthquake with the main event and then a series of aftershocks. Eventually the back pain and sciatica subsided and I learned to live with it and as long as I quit what I’m doing as soon as I feel a twinge I’m ok. The last time I really messed it up was when I twisted to my left and lifted one of my daughters’ legs while changing a diaper. I was treated with muscle relaxers and TENS. That was maybe 9 or so years ago.
Well, I believe theoretically you COULD just get up and move about pretty much normally, all it would take is the ability to ignore the vision-hazing sphincter-unravelling head-spinning bolts of liquid agony shooting from your back to all other parts of the body.
Practically, as you say it’s just a matter of holding very still and pondering for half an hour or more how to accomplish such extraordinary feats of athleticism as reaching for the water glass on the bedside table. After first spending a few hours mulling over whether you really need a drink or whether dehydration is really such a bad thing after all.
Two and a half hours in a plane seat followed by three hours in a crappy rental car seat and then suddenly BOOM - the ache and stiffness turns into a complete inability to move anything connected to the spine. Nice!
I once put my back out playing basketball at a school ground. I literally could not stand up straight, so I had to walk to my car while bent over at a 90 degree angle, and slide into my car seat to drive home. It took a couple days before I could stand up straight again.
I have had my back go out on me to the point I can not walk or get out of bed without help. My back is very sore right now from carrying chairs up and down step. It could get better or go out on my completely.
I’ve had upper back spasms that have lasted for many days, and sneered at ibuprofen. Once time, I finally called a massage therapy place, told the lady the problem, and she spent nearly the full hour essentially brutalizing that part of my back. It genuinely felt bruised when she was done. I like a firm massage - “hurts good” is the phrase I use - but this took it to a whole new level.
And the next day, the ouch was all gone. Dunno whether she was doing psoas release, or just really mutilating any knot she felt, but yeah, it worked.
I once “threw my back out” getting dressed. Standing on one foot, putting underwear on the other. Something I do every single day without injury. I managed to make it to the bed, vs. falling over.
Pulled something in my lower back while jogging. I was 23 then, and yeah everything everyone posted here held true. Any movement in my core was excrutiating, and it felt like I had to relearn how to move. Pain-killers and bed rest got me back in action within a day, so it wasn’t quite as bad as some of the horrific stories here.
I was in my early 20’s. I was putting on panti-hose, heard a crack and couldn’t move. I was at work, noticed a run and was trying to put on a new pair. I managed to shuffle my way out of the ladies room.
My boss had to call an ambulance and I was taken out on a stretcher. So embarrassing. A few days rest and some pain meds and I was okay.
My father put his out by sneezing when he was bent over. The doctor chewed his ass out, if you feel a sneeze coming on stand up straight.
I don’t remember if that was one of the times he had to be in traction or not.
My brother occasionally puts his back out. It’s some kind of spasm or muscular pain, and it really immobilizes him. He can’t do anything but lie flat until it goes away. And afterwards he has to be very careful not to strain his back.