Extreme Back Pain-pulled Muscle?

After both of my children were born, I suffered from severe back pain particularly my trapazoid (mid to upper back). My first floor diaper changing area was too low for me. One day I was flat on my back unable to move until emergency family help arrived. I recall going to the internist who gave me a combination of muscle relaxers and mild pain killers. After the acute crisis resolved, I became much more aware of proper body mechanics and exercises. I can't recall the exact exercises.

I would recommend a consultation from your doctor or chiropracter. Do your best to evaluate the triggers and try to incorporate new ways to work around these triggers. Best of luck!

Unfortunately, it can take awhile if the muscle actually lost attachment....you would feel a big lump if that occured & you should see a dr. if so. If no lump area, then it is probably strained & those can take awhile too depending on how often / much you use it. Cold should be put on at first to stop the swelling for like the first hour, then alternate heat & cold for the next few hours, if no swelling, then use heat to relax the muscle & help increase circulation in the area. Ibuprophen & a muscle relaxant is the best thing & don't use it as much as possible. Once you start to feel a little better start stretching excersizes to keep it limber but without overdoing it. good luck. it hurts.

I've done that more than once. Here's my theory. If the continued pain is the result of a vertebrae being pulled out of place then chiropractic helps. If the pain is from stretching a muscle past it's ability to "bounce" back or results in a muscle tear then I use standard medicine. It's taken time and experience for me to be able to guess at the cause. I now mostly rely on ibuprofen and when the pain doesn't recede in a week or so use a muscle relaxant. That always works, now.

I did use chiropractic when I was younger. I'm not sure that either method, chiropractic or standard medicine is any better than the other. Chiropractic taught me how to move so that I had pain less often. For example I have scoliosis between my shoulder blades. When I carry heavy weights on my right side I do end up with pain. So I carry shopping bags etc in my left arm. I had a personable chiropractor who taught me to always bend my knees and squat when I lifted something heavy. I'd read and heard that before but his personality helped me to internalize it.

Sometime along the way I also learned that cold sometimes works better than heat for pain in this circumstance. And that too long applying heat is counter productive. Only apply heat for 10-20 minutes at a time. And rest flat on my back was the advice from both the medical doctor and the chiropractic doctor. I don't know how you can do that with kids. I took time off from work.

It depends on what you actually did to your back. Pretty much the worst thing possible is a slipped disc, and the best is a pulled muscle. Slipped disks never really heal, pulled muscles heal in a few days to a week. Back spasms can take several months. So if your back still hurts after a couple days, or if it gets worse at ALL, go see your doc to figure out what's up. And try not to carry the kids anywhere... since dropping babies is generally in the "not good" column.

I fee for you. I've never had back problems until this summer. MAJOR back spasm. And then (because I don't like drugs) I went off of my muscle relaxers too soon and my back spasmed as I was walking down the stairs and I took a header. I was okay, just a few broken fingers and a sprained ankle, and lots of bruises. The 2 thousand dollar laptop I had saved for for 3 years was destroyed. I just thank god I wasn't carrying my son.

Chiropractic and ice not heat!

I'm a certified posture alignment and pain management specialist. You need to go to the EGSOCUE website and pull off a couple of e-cises (exercises/positions) for back pain. I'm in Fishers. Let me know if you need an appointment.

FYI.....bending over wasn't the real problem. Your alignment was off before than and your body just said, "NO MORE". Bending over was "the straw that broke the camel's back." (No pun intended)

Let me know.

You more than likely pulled/twisted the muscles in your back. You might have even have bulged (herniated) a disk.

Take Motrin/Advil, those are anti-inflammatory medications and will help a lot! Ice it for the first 48 hours 20 min on, 20 min off. Then heat after that. Standing on your feet, lay over your bed, it will strech the spine and give relief. Try to not lift as much as possible. (being a mother of 4 I know its hard to do)

A chiropractor would probably do you a lot of good!! A good adjustment will align the spine and relieve muscle strain. If you have a bulged disk, most of the time it will even take the pressure off the nerve...

If you do have a pinched nerve you might have pain in either or both of your hips, shooting down the legs. I might ask the doctor for a muscle relaxer. Most common ones are Soma, Flexeril, or Skelaxin. (They can make you sleepy, if you have never used a muscle relaxer before I would recommend the Skelaxin; typically it does not make people sleepy)

I have suffered with chronic back pain for many years, (I have many different issues with my lumbar spine.) so I am very familiar with the treatments for back pain. With what you are experiencing I would assume the pain would be gone within 2 weeks or so.

When you get to the stage of chronic pain, you will be sent to see a neurologist. They will usually, send you for MRI's, CT Scans, x-rays, sometimes an ultrasound of the spine, then do a nerve test to see how badly affected the nerves are. They will usually start with Physical Therapy and medication. There are medications to treat nerve pain such as, Lyrica, Cymbalta, and Neurontin and so on. If that does not work then you will see a pain specialist who typically starts off with cortisone injections, then moves down the list... interlaminar epidurals, Translaminar Epidural, and so on. (All of which I have had and none of which have relieved my pain,)

The last resort is surgery. I am trying to avoid the surgery my doctors recommend. All surgeries can have serious complications. I have had several surgeries throughout my life. 4 on my knees alone. I never really considered the complications that could occur. Last year after my hysterectomy I had very severe complications. 4 days after coming home from the hospital I suffered Massive Bi-Lateral Pulmonary Embolisms. (Lots of blood clots in my lungs, they stopped counting at 8) By every medical standard I should have died that night; April 20th 2009. I was 28 years old! I am a mother to 4 beautiful children, ages 8, two 6 year olds and a 2 year old. So as you can imagine I am very afraid to ever have surgery again.

I currently take a variety of medications to get me through the day. 40 mg flexeril a day (20 morning and 20 night) two 5/500mg vicoden 3x's a day or two 5/325 percocet for pain depending on my pain level during the day. The first number refers to the amount of narcotic; the second number refers to the amount of Tylenol. So if you ever are prescribed one of these pain medications do not take any additional Tylenol products. Then I take 7mg of Valium nightly. Valium can be used for many different reasons, in my case it is used as an additional pain reliever and muscle relaxer, for me it has a sedating affect to help me sleep, pain free. On the nights that I am in too much pain to move/walk or function normally I also have Oxycodone to add to the mix. This is an opioid analgesic medication that is time released; it is also used for pain relief. This is my last resort of the really bad days. For an anti-inflammatory I take 800mg Motrin 2x's a day. Sometimes doctors will prescribe naproxen, it is also an anti-inflammatory, but does have the affect of pain relief.

Here is a website to help you understand more about back pain and the causes:
http://backpaininfo.com/backDiscHerniations.html

I hope your recovery is quick and the information I have provided helps you to understand the process of what can happen with chronic back pain.

Hi Jen,

I also recommend chiropractic care. By your question, I am assuming you don't have one. If you don't know of a good one in your area go to upcspine.com and find one. You need a principled upper cervical chiropractor. They not only understand alignment of the spine for pain relief but also understand that the spine is the lifeline to good health. If the electrical panel in your house is not wired correctly, you can't use your electrical appliances efficiently. The same with your body.

After this is all taken care of you need to start working out your back muscles. With a big toddler like that, you are liable to do this more than once. Exercising and strengthening the muscles will help prevent it from happening again.

God bless,

M.

Hi Jen,
Sorry to hear about your back, it sound painful. I would try ice instead of heat. When you have a strain or pain you have inflammation which causes heat in the muscles, so when you are adding heat to the injury. Ice will reduce the heat and inflammation. Rest is is also necessary, although hard with small ones. Hope you feel better soon!
K.,LMT

Muscle pains should always be treated with RICE.
R-rest
I-ice it, 20 minutes at a time, about every 1-2 hours.
C-compress if possible. For a leg or ankle, use an ace wrap. You could use some type of a binder if it feels comfortable to wear it. Backs don't always use compression.
E-elevate, again, usually for a leg or ankle.

Hope this helps. Do the ice for 24-48 hours, then try heat. Using heat encourages increased blood flow to the area, which can increase the inflammation and damage. Ice helps decrease the blood flow to the area, and decreases the inflammation and damage to the area which is why you want to use ice first, then heat later.
Good luck. Back strains are horrible.
R.