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Hi. Has anyone here ever had a lower back injury (especially whilst in their mid thirties and beyond) and managed to recover and get back to age appropriate full fitness?
From everything I have read online in the past few days I think I may have a herniated disc in my lumbar region. I am currently in pain and my upper torso is leaning to one side (so I am basically having to walk crooked - I have not left the house in 4 days because of this).
Has anyone here ever experienced something like this and did they recover (if so how?).
I cannot find much info about the "lean" - it seems that it is uncommon.
For my part the injury came on the day AFTER I exercised (light weights and then some harder cardio - including running back home mostly uphill - 2.5 miles). I felt absolutely fine upon getting home and showering.
It is not just the physical part that is the problem. As I have not felt too good generally during the last few years. I have often wondered if the exercise I get 3-4 times a week (and associated daylight outside) is perhaps the only thing keeping my head above the water.
I fractured my lower back when young and had to wear a brace. The fracture created muscle spasms and severe pain. It eventually healed and calmed down. Later, when in my 30's, I had another lower back issue that was exercise related and had severe pain for several months and it finally calmed down. This later happened again due to a job I was working. It again resolved, but after a few months.
I have some disc compression and it causes pain and numbness in my right leg periodically, but has been fairly good for a long time.
One thing I avoid is jumping into exercise quickly if I have not been doing so on a regular routine. I work up slowly and gradually- particularly any exercise that uses my lower back.
You should check with your a physician and they may want to do a scan to see what is going on.
I tend to suffer from this from time to time. Here is a video of some stuff you can do to help pop your back into place. When "the shift" happens to me I sometimes have to do the "leaning against the wall and pressing on my hip" thing a few times throughout the day until it wants to stay straight, but it does seem to help me to recover much faster than doing nothing. I also got myself one of those inversion tables which also seems to help whenever it flares up. Here'ss the video. Good luck!
OP, it sounds like you should follow up with your PCP to get some sort of scan to make sure something serious isn’t going on. I have a friend whose husband had an issue that also didn’t seem to come from an injury and it turned out that part of a disc cracked off and was pushing into the nerve. He needed emergency surgery, but after he had it, he was able to bounce back within a few months. You don’t want to put yourself in a situation where you don’t know what the problem is and are doing movements/exercises that could worsen the problem.
It seems beneficial for you to get a workup done anyway if you haven’t been feeling too well. The doctor can do a workup to make sure your hormones and vitamin levels are ok. That same friend told me she was sort of feeling blah for a while and apparently had very low B12 and getting an infusion was like a jolt of energy. Others have very low vitamin D or found out they had Hashimoto’s. Weight gain is common with that, but I had a friend in grad school who was athletic and fit and I never noticed any dramatic weight change. She said she just felt awful.
I tend to suffer from this from time to time. Here is a video of some stuff you can do to help pop your back into place. When "the shift" happens to me I sometimes have to do the "leaning against the wall and pressing on my hip" thing a few times throughout the day until it wants to stay straight, but it does seem to help me to recover much faster than doing nothing. I also got myself one of those inversion tables which also seems to help whenever it flares up. Here'ss the video. Good luck!
Same here. After time your discs degenerate and this becomes a semi-frequent occurrence. Try these exercises and ice the crap out of it as often as you can. The swelling is not allowing that disc to pop back into place. Once it does you'll be like new again. Just be very careful with certain exercises that you're using proper form and not going too heavy. For me it's always been squats that have irritated my lower back so I have eliminated them from my leg workout for the most part.
You don’t want to put yourself in a situation where you don’t know what the problem is and are doing movements/exercises that could worsen the problem.
This is why I am a bit wary of trying to do some exercises to try and fix it, in case I make it worse.
Though as I said, I did not get the injury from any jolting, heavy weights or new exercise.
Also, I have thought about seeing a chiropractor - but there is a lot of conflicting information about them. Some say they can also make things worse - though others swear they can help.
I tend to suffer from this from time to time. Here is a video of some stuff you can do to help pop your back into place. When "the shift" happens to me I sometimes have to do the "leaning against the wall and pressing on my hip" thing a few times throughout the day until it wants to stay straight, but it does seem to help me to recover much faster than doing nothing. I also got myself one of those inversion tables which also seems to help whenever it flares up. Here'ss the video. Good luck!
Do you get any pain? How long does it take you to "recover" normally?
I am about to enter the 6th day of this tomorrow (Saturday). At the moment I will be pleased to just be able to walk again. Not sure about anything else yet . . .
You may have muscle spasms from it. What helped my back, as temporary relief, was to put my arms on two countertops and let my legs hang, suspended (between the countertops). It took the pressure off of it. The first time I inured my back, I went to a chiropractor and he would pop it and have an assistant run a massager on it. When I would leave the place, the pain was worse than ever. I went back routinely each week with no improvement. I finally went to a sports medicine physician and he told me to bring the file and x-ray from the chiropractor, which I did. He opened the file and looked at the x-ray and said I had a long hairline fracture and I needed to wear a brace for about 3 months, which I did and it healed up fairly quickly. All was good after that for a long time, until I had another issue in my 30's. It took several months and the pain finally went away overnight. I am much older now and I know I have some nerve compression from a eroding disc, but it has not bothered me for a long time. I have done a lot of manual labor jobs and have been very physically active. I have also done desk jobs and the desk jobs are much harder on my back and knees. The body needs to be moving.
Wow. I just happened to see this.
Ok, so I am also very much into fitness and hurt my back from sleeping on a bad bed and AFTER doing a new Yoga/pilates stretch.
Worse yet, it happened while overseas. My GF didn't explain everything what the doctor gave me and I took drugs that caused a side effect. He spoke no English.
Okay, that's a different story altogether.
I had serious pain for two weeks, I could only crawl but the pain was so bad it would make you cry and wonder if you'd; ever recover or walk correctly. It hurt when I sat, layed down, or limped around and so on. There was a fiery nerve pain shooting down my leg too. Sciatica and S2 and another one. So, I flew back and had to choose PT or surgery. I was explained that surgery is 50//50 even for celebrity pro athletes. Just look at Tiger Woods. So I chose the PT route.
No high impact sports or heavy weights for 6 months and lots of new lower ab and lower back exercises. I did a full 9 months of rehab and lots of walking around the 1/4 mile track at the nearby college because the PT said walking helps a lot. No advanced yoga or pilates anymore either. I went back to my normal routine later on.
Rivertown above is right. Long hours at a desk are not good for your back. You should try to move a lot ro take breaks. Yet manual labor job people get other physical medical conditions too. Not really any perfect occupation except for maybe one that requires a lot of walking inside a bldg .
Fast forward today and I am back to 98% of what I was. However, as of today I always do those new ab and back exercises (bridge exercise) along with piriformis stretches, my old ab exercises, leg stretches, and aware of my back posture when sitting. That is a pain I never want to experience again.
So, I try to never curve my back down for anything. Not for ab exercises either. It is simply wrong.
Also, a chiropractor will tell your back issue was caused from either prolonged bad posture, bad form during exercising, and/or consuming too much food or drink that is inflammatory like sugar, breads, and carbs. It's a tough journey back to health but you can do it. It usually happens as you age. It got me in the mid 40s from a bad guest bed and doing an exercise I shouldn't have done.
If you don't go to a doctor and take care of yourself , don't expect to feel good.
They are not gods. But they have a lot of good tools , and if you have a doctor that wants to operate, dump him.
I could go on about my stuff but i am not going to do that. Trust me have a good attitude , keep moving, have a good doctor. Have a life that doesn't leave you only ever about you.
Everything about us is all in what we think. You can think yourself sick . You can also heal yourself. Believe it.
AND try not to make everything about your pain , or disk, etc and that is for us all !!
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