I had a great fall 1 year ago. At the time I thought "if you have to fall girl you could not have fallen better" because it was onto soft gravel and did not hurt a bit. It was caused by a traffic cop walking out in front of me without looking. The traffic cop even said sorry and admitted it! I was too relieved she did not try to say it was my fault so I got out of there on my bike as quickly as I could.

However 5 weeks later I started getting excruciating pains up and down my back. All sorts of different pain ways which appeared to be in both bone and muscle from my pelvis and up most of my back at different times. After 3 weeks it got to the point where I could not even open a door without it hurting and any involuntary rotatory movement hurt me the most. One evening I was sitting on a London Underground train being jolted around and almost crying with the pain - usually I know it's a bit bumpy sometimes but that's all. I thought I wasn't showing my pain but a girl I never met before sitting opposite me offered to massage me because she was a physiotherapist, and she could just see looking at me that I was in so much pain. At that point, having been nearly in tears for a week, I thought "you silly girl now go to the doctor".

BUT I hate going to the doctor and it's really difficult for me to get time off work so I said "I'll wait just two weeks and if it's still bad, then I'll go". It took 3 weeks before it even began to improve, and then another 5 weeks. At no time was there any visible bruise or particular spot of tenderness. My boyfriend thought I must have had really deep bruises in my pelvis after the accident with the traffic cop and that through all the layers of fat (thanks boyfriend :-) ) it took those 5 weeks for the pain to come out. Looking back, I think I should have gone to a physiotherapist first. She would have advised me if I would have needed X-rays and maybe started the healing/hurting process and got me through it sooner.