I screwed up my back and have no idea...

[ASammy1]

... how I did it.

Last Wednesday night I was flying home from a business trip and I felt a very slight twinge of pain, but didn't think much of it. Thursday I was feeling a little sore and by Friday I was feeling great. Friday afternoon at work I was sitting at my desk when I reached down to fix my pant leg and I felt the most excrutiating pain across my lower back. Saturday I was feeling a little better so I went on my 21 mile easy group ride. The ride did not hurt my back at all. Fast forward to late Sunday night/early Monday morning... I woke up and couldn't get out of bed. The pain was so bad that I almost threw up. My BF wanted to take me to the emergency room, but i didn't want to go. I appeased him by agreeing to call my Dr the first thing in the morning. I did, and they couldn't get me in until this morning. She gave me prescriptions for a muscle relaxer, Motrin 600s, and Tylenol 3. Needless to say... I feel pretty good now.

I've never had any sort back pain before and was wondering if there are any exercises that I can do to maybe strengthen my lower back to hopefully prevent this from happening again?

[yellow]

I'll start by saying that I'm not an expert on back pain (yet), but I've learned a lot in the last couple of weeks.

My understanding is that the sudden onset pain is typically a result of the muscles contracting to protect your spine from injury/further injury. What you describe is pretty consistent with pain caused by this happening around the facets, which are the little "joints" in your back. Once the "danger" passes, the muscles will relax and the pain will subside. That explains why the muscle relaxants work and why oftentimes it just goes away on its own.

Be very careful with your back; I made the mistake of thinking that I could fix mine with more strength (back and ab work), more stretching, more mobility, etc., and it turned out my problem had nothing to do with that and I probably ended up making the inflammation worse. Of course I tend to overdo everything, so I probably overdid the core work and stretching.

Again, be careful. Hopefully you can get in to see your doc soon!!

[Andrea]

Hey- I had a similar issue with my neck last Friday! I leaned back in my office chair and stretched my arms over my head... then I felt a twinge in the muscles @ the base of my neck. Within minutes, it spread across my neck like a GIANT crick. I couldn't turn my head side to side or lift my chin to a normal level without a lot of pain. Luckily, I work with someone whose wife is a very good PT. She got me in that afternoon and told me that I'd rotated a segment @ T1 & C7. She did some (kinda painful) adjustments and told me to take it easy for a couple of days. It feels almost totally better now, but it was pretty scary when it happened. Hopefully yours is something just as easily fixed!

[wackyjacky1]

Sounds like a muscle spasm in your lower back. I've had that happen to me several times. The first was about 8 years ago. I would feel some tightness in my lower back for a day or so, but nothing major. Then I would make some very innocent movement (it could be as simple as reaching out for something) and -- WHAM-O -- spasm city. The pain is excruciating! The doctor initially thought I had scoliosis because the muscle spasmed so hard that the alignment of my spine was completely out of whack. The prescriptions you have, especially the muscle relaxers, should help.

However, I continued to have bad spasms about once a year; the last one really crunched my sciatic and I still have numbness down the outside of my right leg due to that.

Even though I've always been leery of them, I finally decided to try a chiropractor. After a handful of sessions, I finally found relief, and am happy to say that I have been spasm-free for almost 4 years. So you might want to look into that.

In the meantime, rest your back and enjoy your meds. Good luck!