Find the best professional. Perhaps some actually do practice evidence based medicine (the guy the Rockets brought in, for example). I'd rather go to that guy than the real" doctor who's satisfied with shooting you up with drugs and putting a bandage on. I've been to enough those. You're made to walk barefoot. If you're dependent on shoes, gels, and inserts for relief, then you're just putting a cast on a paper cut. It's like being tired after walking a mile. You can either get in better shape or drive next time. What's better from a health and performance standpoint?
I was told not to walk barefoot by my back dr. After investing in inserts, I've been pain free. To each his own, but it worked for me and I have a herniated disc and suffered with lower back pain until I found this dr.
It makes sense if you have that problem and just want to be pain free, but it's not good general advice. You would be holding back the body's ability to adapt and improve to outside stimulus, which is key to avoiding injury in the first place.
Muscle relaxant. Flexiril. I'd see a doc, need to do a straight leg test and make sure there's no other issues. If it's related to excersise it's most likely a lumbosacral strain and all you can do is take a muscle relaxer and then start lifting really lightly along with changing the position you sleep in. Hope you get relief. Back pain is the worst.
had backspasms at the gym once, wasn't even during a workout. Finished deadlifts, went to fill up my water and just keeled over. NOT FUN.
HOLY CRAP. I've been taking ibuprofen, stretching, took a day off of weights, hot shower on my lower back, and last night, I layed on the floor. BIG MISTAKE! I could not get up. My gf had to lift me into a seated position and I had to tell her to stop because the pain literally seizes up my entire body with pain. Finally I managed, with her help, to stand upright. She go me into bed and put me on the massaging heat mat. Then she asked me to roll over so she could rub my back. The rub down felt great, but rolling back and forth was terrible. I'm going to the dr today. Enough is enough.
Thanks Roc, and thanks to all that have offered advice and kind words. This is a tough pill to swallow, and just at the start of coaching my 22nd basketball season. It sucks eggs.
if you had a problem with your hand, foot, eye, etc, you would go see a Dr who specializes in that respective field. Go see a chiropractor.
Going to doc on my conference period. I only have an hour and a half and he can take me right in. I''ll see where it goes after that.
You seem to have a reasonable perspective on this. What would help with upper back/shoulder/neck tension? I'm assuming you would say chest/core strengthening. I don't believe in chiropractors generally after seeing friends obtain relief only to end up back in pain a few weeks or months later. Massage therapy is helpful but if overdone it seems like you'd end up thinking about your pain more often rather than coping.
I'd say you may have issues with your thoracic area. That rear neck and upper back area can get tight because the traps and levator scapulae are activating too much. That's usually a result of that thoracic area not having the range of motion it needs to move correctly, especially at the shoulder. So to create some room to operate you basically start shrugging unconsciously. It's kind of all connected though, so that issue can eventually travel down and create a core problem or it could have started the other way around and traveled up, from a dysfunctional core to the thoracic area. Massage therapy works, but it needs to work the fascia correctly to get things to loosen up. I'll get into that more, if you'd like, later when I'm off mobile and back on a computer.
Flexeril (sp) didn't do much for me. Neither did skelaxin. Soma did... but I get the idea that Soma is a very controlled medication, since the doctors don't prescribe to me any more. A vicodin/soma sandwich... ahhhhhhh
No. You go to an optometrist to get glasses or simple infections. You go to an ophthalmologist for eye surgery, cataracts, etc. Back pain very often involves systemic causes that can't be fixed by a person's hands. They may require medications or surgery. A chiropractor can't prescribe medications and can't perform medical surgery. Therefore, chiropractors are not physicians who specialize in system based back pain. If the pain is very basic, and not attributable to other systemic conditions, then chiros may be an okay choice, but it's difficult to get a full physical evaluation from a chiro. I am in no way trying to put down chiropractors. They are just not back pain specialists, even though can relieve some types of basic pain. OP, I hope you went to see a pain physician. If not, at least maybe you could get a referral. Most times, they would require an x-ray or MRI to do anything.
You should see a Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation physician. Might have to go through yor PCP to get a referral to them. They're (normally) pretty good about referrals to therapists and chiropractors, so if you need one, you'll get one. They also know the pain med game better than just about everyone, so you won't be thrown on something crazy without reason. For some reason, many people see it as physicians vs. chiropractors. Many physicians are too quick to prescribe pain medication, which relieves pain but does not fix any underlying musculoskeletal issues. And many chiropractors overstep their mark with what manipulation can do. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Do your research on physiatrists (PM&R docs), find one you might wanna see and see if you can get a referral from your PCP. If something is structurally wrong with your back, taking pills and superficial relaxants (heat, ice, Bengay) may not be enough. It could be serious, it could be nothing. Good luck.
Stop lifting weights until your physician tells you that you can start again. You are putting yourself at risk for turning a minor disc bulge or inflamation into a multi level disc herniation. Serious back pain is nothing to play around with, people suffer life long disabilities over it.
I went to the General Practitioner for the time being. She seems to thinks it muscular due to the added weight from the seated cable rows. She prescribed flexeril and ibu 800. I'll be getting heat and electro shock treatments from the athletic trainer here on campus. I'm moving a little better but doc said to lay off the weights for a week. That sucks.
Good post........a good therapist can tell you if you have a structural issue that's causing the pain. That's the best place to start IMO. All the physicians i went to just wanted to brace and reduce pain for my ankle issues, a few years back. Problem was the alignment of the leg coming from the hip, which was collapsing my ankle inward. Bracing and pain meds would just have made things more bearable, but don't fix anything. You want to take care of these things before they wear out your joints down too quickly or set you up for serious injury. Once that happens, then your only option may be pain meds and surgery.
