The past eight days have been some of the most painful of my entire life. Worse pain than any abcessed tooth or broken/fractured bone or migraine headache.
My back went out.
At first all I felt was a slight discomfort in the lower left side of my back when I removed a less than 20 pound box from a shoulder-height shelf and turned/twisted to load it onto a cart.
There was something ominous about how my back tweaked as I placed the relatively light box down though. It was one of those "uh-oh" moments when one knows one has screwed something up worse than it appears.
For the first few days after the tweaking I felt only slight discomfort, but on the fourth day the pain ramped up suddenly and severely.
Have you ever spent a night trying desperately to find a comfortable position in your bed to sleep? Constantly adjusting and shifting your torso and legs to get at least a minute or two of comfort, all of which is painful? Yeah, it was that level of hell.
I felt like a carnival contortionist trying to fit into a suitcase that kept getting smaller and smaller, all while some idiot outside the box was sticking knives into the shrinking space.
After downing 800mg of Ibuprofen and putting an ice pack on the spot where the imaginary knives were lancing into my lower back (about two inches to the left of my spine, right between the erector spinae and gluteus maximus), I was finally able to get a little sleep).
The intense pain returned within a few short minutes of my wakening however so I started texting people I know who have suffered back injuries and endured intense back pain in order to get their advice on what to do.
CMM, who was rear-ended by a truck while driving along I-70 almost 20 years ago and has had to contend with persistent back pain ever since.
BWB, who has had a dodgy back for most of his adult life and has managed to work in an industry that requires heavy lifting nevertheless.
JER, who injured his back while serving in the U.S. Army and is now on full disability.
All three of them gave great advice that included most of what you see in the pic above (the only piece of advice not shown is the cannabis - I'm just not a cannabis guy).
And of course I was told, "Get thee to a Doctor".
So, I did.
I made a beeline to a little clinic not to far from my house. I was able to be seen by a Physician Assistant after a short wait.
After a little gentle poking and prodding of my lower back to determine where the soreness was centralized (see above) I underwent a few quick tests. First was the straight leg test while I was sitting in a chair, than the straight leg test while I was lying prone on the exam table.
The sitting straight leg test was just me lifting my left leg slowly and repeatedly, which I was able to do with no discomfort to my leg though I did feel discomfort in my lower back.
The straight leg test while I was laying down on the exam table involved the PA lifting my left leg slowly and asking if I was feeling any pain as she raised my leg until it was at a 90 degree angle to the rest of me. I felt pain in my lower back but nothing in my leg, which she said was a good sign.
Then she did what she said was a text for possible nerve injury, which she called the femoral nerve test. It was simply having me turn onto to my big belly and then she lifted my left leg while it was bent at the knee. She asked if I was feeling any pain in my thigh and I told her I didn't, which she said was another good sign.
Good signs while I was suffering from some pretty damn debilitating lower back pain. Oh yay.
Long story short, soft tissue strain was the diagnoses, and I was prescribed a 5% lidocaine patch (I had no idea PA's could write prescriptions but apparently they can).
I was also told to lose some weight - at least 60 if not 75 pounds. I am a large human, have been since I was small (which, at any time for whatever age I was, I never was - my waist was a 36 when I was in the 6th grade and I was what people labeled "husky" back then).
I have been as heavy as 335 (pounds, not kilos) since I left high school all those decades ago, and I currently run 285 (well, not run, 'cause, you know, I'm fat).
Being descended from generations of coal miners and others who made their livings lifting heavy stuff kinda sucks when it comes to losing weight. I am genetically pre-disposed to being a larger than average human.
I have, however, managed to lose weight when it was necessary, primarily through rigorously adopting Bill Phillips Body For Life fitness system.
So it looks like I'm going to be undertaking that 84 day challenge once again (though going lightly on the exercise part). I apologize in advance for the grouchiness that will develop concurrently.
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