Lower Back Pain

Rocker

LBP is a near constant in my life. And has been for many years. I can only play guitar or bass while seated. Standing in a queue is a painful experience. No cure for this it seems. Anyone else here suffer from this?

mgaw

used to get it a lot, pretty sure you could sort it out with the right exercises and being fit and supple though

Bygone_Tones

Time to ditch the 10lb les paul maybe?

Hootsmon

what age are you Rocker?

skunkwerx

Seen the doc? Tbh from my experience theyre pretty useless and won't refer u less youre crippled but he gave me a bunch of exersises to do which strengthens all your supporting muscles and helps take the strain off your weak bits. 

Kinda helps but gotta stick at it. 
I had undiagnosed coeliacs for many many years, which resulted in osteopoenia of my lower spine so I'm sure that made the pain worse, however my bones apparantly grew back. Bit dubious about that but could have happened! 

I still get severe issues though. I used to work for an ambulance company, and did my back in while helping someone up, since then maybe once a year I will just bend over or reach into the car and get something, not even picking something up and it will just go. Get weak legs and severe pain for up to a week which results in time off and active rest with co-codamol. 

Annoying at 28 if im honest and my lack of faith in the 2 gp's I've had is just as annoying! 

Today I've been crouching, bending and doing general diy and cleaning, and its aching. 

MtB

I started getting LBP in my mid twenties. I went through phases of it getting really bad, and then almost disappearing, then coming back all of a sudden.
From my mid 20's I started to play a lot of sport (squash / 5-a-side footy / swimming), and the LBP would occur more frequently. So finally I went to a sports physio, who forcibly twisted my lower back / hips one way while my top half remained still - a click / pop of a few of my vertebrae and everything would be ok.

Again, this happened over a number of years, until sometime in my 30's while being treated by said physio, he advised me to get my back x-rayed. The results showed that I have Spondylolysis (often known as scotty dog syndrome), which is a defect or stress fracture in one of the vertebra bones - and which creates a weak point. Even the experts don't know how the fracture occurs, some suggesting that it may happen while being born!!

Having had the diagnosis, the physio gave me a set of lower back exercise to do, and which build up the muscles in the lower abdomen / back. As long as I kept doing these the LBP was kept at a minimum.

Now in my mid-50's I have given up all but cycling, and ironically my back has never felt better.

I would advise you - if you haven't already - to get it properly checked out and x-rayed. 

Travisthedog

I'm literally frozen in pain right now. 

Being 6'4"  and fat, and driving for a living means my lumbar spine and discs are wanked.

that said this is the first time for a while it's stopped me in my tracks.

its always much better when I lose weight and do some exercise!

richardhomer

I used to suffer from it quite a bit.

Since I lost four stone I don't.

Guitar_Slinger

I'm not a doctor, but after meals  etc, etc.

Seriously through... I'm not a sufferer but have been involved in a medical forum where muscular skeletal pain was a topic.  The experts said that in the old days, people with back pain were advised to lie down and keep still, but today they advise keeping moving.

'scuse me if everyone knew that already.

holnrew

Losing weight, improving posture and lumbar stretches have all helped me. 

boogieman

My wife was a nurse and used to get a lot of back pain through years of lifting patients. It's knackered her shoulders too. Doing pilates has helped her a lot, she's much more flexible and is pretty much painfree in her back now. 

camf

Had it for years... been having a bad spell of it lately, but these days I've come to accept it's my own fault. If I do the core strengthening exercises, I don't get it. Stop doing the exercises, my back gets worse. I've been really dedicated at the gym for the last six months but for the last few weeks I'd been increasingly doing more and more cardio and less core stabilizing stuff in the belief that I'd propbably be fine. Wrong!

If you can access it, in my experience, pilates was the best thing I ever tried and it's worked for a lot of top sportspeople facing potentially career-ending back problems. It's not got any of the spiritual bollocks that goes with yoga but it's excellent for treating bad/weak backs. After I'd done pilates for a couple of years, I stopped and eventually my back got worse again. Looking for a quicker fix, I went to see a chiropractor or osteopath (can't remember) and I mentioned that I'd been doing pilates. He said that if all his clients went to pilates once a week, he'd have no clients. I went back to pilates again and my back soon stopped hurting.

Eventually I worked out I didn't need to do a whole pilates course to fix my back and things like 'pointing dog' exercises, planks and sit-ups were enough. Like I said, if I keep doing them, my back pain goes in a couple of weeks at most. It helps to have someone explain how to identify the various core stabilising muscles and how to strengthen them, but after that, it's just up to you to keep doing it.

Everyone is different, but hopefully my experience can offer a possibility of relief. It's a miserable, loathsome thing. Almost as bad as exercising every day.

Chalky

Its all in the exercises. Google Robin Mckenzie, New Zealand chap who did loads of work on backs.  His exercises are easy, don't use any strength, and they don't need equipment or more than a few minutes of your time.

Rule is simple - if you suffer lower back problems (and you've been checked to make sure it is nothing unusual or seriously wrong) then these daily exercises will remove the pain. If you are too lazy to do the exercises then you will have pain.

blobb

Osteopath, Osteopath, Osteopath.

Think of it like this: if you imagine balancing a broom in the palm of your hand, how much effort do you need to put into moving your hand about to keep the head in the same position? That's what is happening.

Your spine is flexible, not fixed like a broomhandle. It can be viewed in three parts, top middle bottom if you like. For the body to keep in control it protects the middle bit [thorac] and the stress moves either upwards [Cranial] or downwards [lumbar]. You are experiencing excessive lumbar pain caused by transmission of movement away from the thorac region. This is very painful.

your body will keep the broomhandle in the right position no matter what it takes. Think about body temperature, that stays fixed at 37degc and your heating / cooling mechanisms kick in to maintain the core temperature. The amount of effort your body has to put in to do all the calculations and muscle movement to keep the broom balanced takes energy - so your body produces adrenaline to keep it going. This adrenaline never gets re-absorbed and you end up with adrenaline fatigue.

Get to an Osteopath who will unlock the thorac and free the lumbar, making the broomhandle flexible again. He will also balance your breathing and give you exercises to balance your whole body out. Yoga is particularly good (look up The Plough), Pilates is also yoga based.

A doctor will give you pain killers to mask the problem and tell you you are getting old but unlikely to actually do anything about it. Physio will only give you exercises to build the muscles to keep the broom up in the air.

If you want rid of the pain go see a good Osteopath

http://www.osteopathy.org.uk/home/


Gravity is thine enemy.

thumpingrug

I'll agree with Blobb above to an extent.  Ive had back problems for years, So has my dad, so has my grandmother, so has my brother.  We are/were all relatively tall, over 6 foot.   I saw an osteopath for years, she would regularly pop me back into position. diagnosed a scoliosis (kink in the spine).  Treatment would help but never cured the problems.  One day whilst in a great deal of pain she starts her prodding and stopped saying I should go see a doctor.  Doc sent me for a scan and I had ruptured a disk.   Very painful and I spent several weeks in agony.  Coincidentally it was when MR went down and this place stared up.  Eventually I was sent for an epidural in the spine.  HUGE needle, but it did the job of reducing the swelling and getting me on my feet again.  Six months later I was sent for physio.  This also helped, but keeping it up after the sessions ended has proved difficult.  

blobb

^ yes, if there is any medical problem, a good osteo will refer you to a gp. In my exp, Osteo are better placed to diagnose a medical cond. I never got any sort of examination from my gp. There are also good and not so good Osteo's. I'm lucky that mine is one of the good ones. Given that back pain is such a common ailment, It astounds me that Osteo is still thought of as an alternative medicine thing. It's bloody fantastic if you get the right practitioner.

mellowsun

It's important find the cause first to determine how to treat it. If muscular, it can be treated with the right exercise by strengthening the supporting muscles.

Grunfeld

mellowsun said:

It's important find the cause first to determine how to treat it. If muscular, it can be treated with the right exercise by strengthening the supporting muscles.

Pretty much this.
Pain can have complex drivers -- not always mechanical.  (This is why I disagree with you @blobb  ; -- osteopathy is but one tool in the toolbox.)
Mechanical pain should respond to physical treatments such as physiotherapy/ osteopathy, and especially exercises. 

But some pain can be caused by problems with nerve tissue, either through physical mechanisms or disease, and this sort of neurogenic pain doesn't respond so well to conservative physical treatments. 
And some pain can have central drivers -- this sort of pain, which is very real, very painful, very in the low back for example, can be caused through central mechanisms.  It's more difficult to understand but my car mechanic gave me a brilliant analogy a couple of days ago when he was saying the warning lights on a car were showing the air bags were faulty but he didn't think there was anything wrong with them, he thought the problem was in the sensor mechanism so he was gonna test and replace that piece of electronics.  Unfortunately for central pain problems it's not so easy to test and replace a brain. 
There's a whole other realm of pain which is psychological -- difficult to explain briefly but anyone in the business knows when a patient walks in waving florid yellow flags!  It's also real pain, a real nuisance and it's far removed from the orthopaedic style of thinking I mostly worked with before I got into this.

Thankfully most back pain is mostly mechanical so it responds to physical treatments.  But when it's more complex you need to tackle it with help from consultant anaesthetists, surgeons, psychologists, and pain specialist nurses and therapists, all working with the GPs. 

EDIT: Just a quick thumbs up for the McKenzie back exercises too.  Very useful to get moving.  Also worth YouTubing are Prof. McGill's 3 core strength exercises -- search "McGill Big Three" or similar.   Basically, a very safe but effective sit-up; a side plank; and a Superman (which is a Pilates standard)

stimpsonslostson

Chalky said:

Its all in the exercises. Google Robin Mckenzie, New Zealand chap who did loads of work on backs.  His exercises are easy, don't use any strength, and they don't need equipment or more than a few minutes of your time.

Rule is simple - if you suffer lower back problems (and you've been checked to make sure it is nothing unusual or seriously wrong) then these daily exercises will remove the pain. If you are too lazy to do the exercises then you will have pain.

This exactly this. I screwed my back sparring and was broken & in constant pain for over a year. Within 2months of starting the McKenzie program I was back and fighting fit again. 

blobb

osteopathy is but one tool in the toolbox

agreed.

I'm in my 3rd year of osteo treatment now. Over 10 years since the accident which almost killed me. So that's 7 years of the other tools in the box failing to acknowledge, let alone treat, my specific problems.

In the world I occupy, osteo has shown itself to be a shining beacon in a very cloudy sky. I now have some elements of my life back and I will be eternally grateful to the guy that got to the bottom of it for me. I'm still on the journey so it's no quick fix either way.

I'm afraid I don't have the optimism and respect I once had for the medical profession. Time and time again they have shown themselves to be incompetent, unprofessional and frankly a danger to the patients they profess to care about. I'm a professional engineer, if I went about my business in the same way I would be struck off.

My ex father in law was a senior consultant surgeon, one of the best in his field and recognised worldwide as such. I lived for many years surrounded by senior medical professionals and discussed this with them regularly.

I'm sorry to say the standards are dropping. Politics has a big part to play in this but I'm not trying to bring that into the discussion.

I think we all need to look outside of the conventional treatment routes.


saying that though, I agree with your comments 100%.

Grunfeld

blobb said:

...I now have some elements of my life back and I will be eternally grateful to the guy that got to the bottom of it for me. I'm still on the journey so it's no quick fix either way.

Glad to hear that you've found a therapist who's helping you get back to fitness.  And sorry to hear you had seven years without such care.  (It's another discussion but one which needs to be had as to how these things happen.)
Just for the record I'm strongly pro-osteopathy.  I should be, I've worked with an osteopath for the best part of 20 years!  I regularly use osteopathic techniques with my patients and likewise, he's become the most physio-like osteopath you're likely to meet.  It's a great tool for a specific set of problems.