I have lower back issues that flares up from time to time.
When I have this, what I get is jarring nerve pain accompanied by severe muscle spasms. Think of the worst “Charlie horse” you’ve ever had, now imagine that all across your lower back that lasts for hours and hours and every time you try to move, move at all. It was a struggle to get out of bed, get in or out of my car, in or out of my chair at work without screaming in pain.
The worst day was the morning I tried to get out of bed and the spasms were so bad that I couldn’t but I had to pee. I managed to finally roll out of my bed and crawl to the bathroom but couldn’t get up on the toilet without being in excruciating pain and screaming so loud that I though my neighbors would hear me and in shear desperation, pulled down a towel from the towel rack and peed on it.
I saw my GP who sent me to an orthopedic who after taking images, diagnosed that I had compression of L5 and L6 and a slight curvature of the spine and sent me to what he called “back school”, i.e. physical therapy. He also wrote an Rx for a muscle relaxer and an anti-inflammatory and a 5-day supply of Percocet to get me though the worst of it. I am not one to want to take pain killers, esp. opioids but I thanked God for them at the time.
When I saw the PT, she further examined me and looked at the images and determined that I not only had compression of L5 and L6 and a slightly curved spine but also that my pelvis was tilted both up and to the left.
What was happening was if I moved in a certain way, the spinal compression and tilted pelvis would hit a nerve in my spine that would cause not only pain but cause the surrounding back muscles to contract and spasm which would in turn cause more pressure on the nerve, causing more nerve pain and causing more muscle spasms and so on and so on until I couldn’t move without excruciating pain and debilitating muscle spasms.
During my PT (back school) I learned to do exercises to strengthen my core and stretches not only for my back but also for my legs as I have very muscular but also extremely tight calve and thigh muscles and focusing on my right side where most of the muscle tightness was. I also got massage therapy and Electrical Stimulation. But one of the most important things I got was lessons on what gym exercises to do and what to not do, even simple things like how to get into and out of my car without twisting my back.
I got amazing results and relief and was pain and Rx free when I followed what I learned in PT.
Then even though I was following the PT’s advice, I was also playing a lot of golf at the time and my back issue flared up again.
My boss at the time recommended that I go to her chiropractor. So, with an open mind, I went to see him.
He did a spinal adjustment that involved me lying on a table while he violently pulled on my head and it terrified me, then also putting his knee on my back and twisting my spine and then used some sort of contraption I called “The Thumper” sort of like a hammer that pounded on certain muscles and which was extremely painful and caused bruising. He also gave me a back massage and not a very good one.
Did it and the other things the chiropractor did such as more traditional PT relieve my pain? Yes. But only for an hour or so at best. And sometimes I felt even worse, was in more pain afterwards and I got much better relief going to a traditional PT.
This chiropractor who determined what my health insurance would pay, recommended I come see him 2 times a day for the next 6 weeks, coincidentally the exact same as the max my insurance would pay.
When I got worse his answer to this was that I needed to come 3 times a day rather than 2 times a day and pay out of pocket by applying for their easy pay credit plan to pay for what my insurance wouldn’t cover.
He also tried to sell me all sorts of rather dubious herbal remedies, colon cleansers, weight loss shakes and mystical healing crystals, aromatherapy candles, etc. In other words, a scam artist and snake oil salesman pretending to be a health care provider.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NYG40oa7Eg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjxf4iFkhQw