my back went out

[Silvercreek Farmer]

i would be leary of a chiropractor that requires many repeat visits. usually 1 or 2 visits should put things back in place. if not go elswhere. i have a friend that several years ago was going on a regular basis with no relief. i told him to stop going for a while. he did and lost the pain. when my pain stays for over a week, i use a gravity table a few times a day; usually helps

This. Everyone I know that has gotten relief from Chiro has gotten it on the first visit.

[Bmi48219]

I’ve had sporadic bouts with sciatica / lower back issues since high school football. Some disk degeneration but not a show stopper, most of the time.
Never had much luck with chiropractors, I realized when my back was seriously out, I usually recovered just as fast without bi-weekly adjustments.

We don’t have much supportive muscle in our lower back. For the average guy strengthening your stomach muscles, and not over-extending yourself, really help prevent lower back attacks.

[warren5421]

I started at 16 with 3 days in hospital with traction. I am 77 now. Since 45-50 I go in to see a doctor I have got the saying "With surgery we will fix you right up. Let's get some xRays, MRI, or CT Scans." the next visit I get "Lets rethink surgery." Go to minanun of two different ortho sergon's in two different offices! I know several people that have had surgery and 7-10 years they are under the knife again. If you go under the knife make sure that what ever they do you can still have an MRI. Cordazone shots help but personally I won't do them after the history with use on horses, too much leaches calcium from bone.

I found that a pain management class helped more than most of the doctors.

[MaryB]

I help my pain doc with a talk for new patients. I flat out tel them "if you are looking for 100% pain relief from narcotics you are a junkie and need help. If you can deal with them taking the pain down to a dull roar and let you function for the day then yes, they will help you." Mot meetings 3-4 people get up and leave, doc never sees them again but he hears they show up at another clinic looking for a prescription...

[kerplode]

So I hope you get better. I just really doubt you will if you're seeing a quackropractor. Those guys are a scam. I've never known anyone that improves from the efforts of a crack-quack. You're gonna end up just going every week for an "adjustment" which will feel better for a day, then need more "adjustments". Spend money, lather, rinse, repeat. I'm also not convinced all that quackery isn't going to actually make the underlying injury worse. I mean dude is just cracking away right...No imaging or nothing to see what's actually wrong.

So go to a real doctor. Get an MRI. Figure out what's really wrong. Get it fixed surgically if needed.

And, finally, what made the biggest difference to my back was strengthening my core muscles so that they hold the spine in correct alignment. I did this with the help of a non-traditional physical therapist, a personal trainer, and exercise.

[TurnipEaterDown]

I thought I was going to avoid these type of comments, but...

After double digit general anesthesia operations by the time I was 50 for one reason or another (some related to youthful vitality & stupidity), I learned that doctors are akin to a mechanic that you ask to diagnose your car problem w/o lifting the hood. They Must use good test protocols, and in this case soft tissue scans, or they are guessing.

I had & have back issues, so have direct experience.

I was operated on for ruptured L5-S1 disk, and it worked out great. I did Exactly what the doctor told me, healed quick, healed well.
Functioning was unbearable in the month or so directly before the surgery.
At 33 years old I had issues walking, tremendous pain and utter lack of sensation (depended on body part & the moment), and would have my back spasm so hard that it literally once flipped me from standing to flat on my back in a fraction of a second. My pain tolerance is high. I have broken bones and not known it, and have driven myself to doctors after tearing my pectoral major completely off my upper arm bone while weight lifting. I also have had the joy of waking up during a cardioversion (cardiac paddles applied to correct heart rhythm issue), so have some experiences to relate pain scale to.
I could not take the back pain by the time I saw my surgeon.

Chiropractor helped me SOME in months before I saw the surgeon, but he was the one who sent me for an MRI after I was reduced to screaming on his table one day. Surgery was my only real choice. The surgeon told me that the L5-S1 had been ruptured for at least 6 years, and I just never knew it because something recent had compressed the disk more and caused more ejected material to press harder on the nerve branch.
I have still a bulged L4-L5, a bulged L3-L4, and a bone spur growing into my spinal chord. Exercises fix things when I get it riled up.
Still lift 2/3 of my body weight w/o any issues at all.

I would recommend the MRI (tissue scan), and then have a talk with credentialed medical professionals. Deciding on surgery is a big deal. A good surgeon can do a wonderful job. I wouldn't trust someone who has done it a time or two, and I do know people who have had bad post surgical experience w/ bulged disks. I thoroughly believe that half the battle is doing Exactly what your surgeon says Post Op.

My surgeon was open w/ me: (if I remember this right, it was about 25 years ago) a blind study from a medical school showed that 40% of people reporting chronic back pain have no skeletal / nerve issues, 60% having skeletal / nerve issues in lower back have no back pain.
It's a mixed bag and guesses unless they use an MRI. Then you can decide on proven courses of action for the factually diagnosed issue.

[DougGuy]

I have a good back for 70yrs old, 50 of which I spent doing hard core industrial stuff, shipyards, power plants, refineries, offshore, I was a pipefitter/pipewelder for the last 15 of those years, LOTS of heavy lifting, climbing, hoisting, rigging, so on and so on. I hurt it a few times, had white tissue injuries that took forever to heal but they did. Never went to a chiro, the GF's tended to do me the most good when I hurt, that and brown liquor.

Now I end up in pain in the afternoon/evenings after working 5-6 hours so the back doctor ordered a scan and to my relief, although I do have degenerative disc disease, there was no real damage, just some deterioration all up and down my spine. Occasionally I hurt enough to take an Oxy, and that makes it better.

The thing that helped me the most so far, is re-thinking how I move in general, and how I lift. I still weld and work steel now and then, so I have started putting my wire feeder in an old shopping cart which makes it MUCH easier to change the wire, and I lay my grinders and extension cords in the basket, I try to not put ANYTHING that I am going to have to bend down and pick up, on the floor. Bad habit and hard to break.

So far if I limit the amount of bending I do during the day, I will be a LOT better off after working. The other thing that made a credible difference is Methocarbamol, a muscle relaxer. This actually does dissipate the pain and make it easier to sleep.

I know you all have worse problems than I do, so I am not complaining, just posting what works for me, less bending and muscle relaxer. I should have started placing things at waist level many years ago.

[jonp]

oops, its called a inversion table

I read a great deal on those and they seem to work. Teeter inversion table, reverse hyper machines and regular back exercises. I had back problems stemming from pulling a 600lb snowmobile out of a snowdrift and driving for a living. I managed to solve mine by stretching and exercise to strengthen the lower back. We bought a Bowflex for this. I used to life iron but as I got older stretching and strength became much more important and resistance training fits the bill.

https://reversehypermachines.com/joe...heal-his-back/
https://teeter.com/fitspine/

I'd try anything and everything under the sun before I let someone cut into me.

[jonp]

So I hope you get better. I just really doubt you will if you're seeing a quackropractor. Those guys are a scam. I've never known anyone that improves from the efforts of a crack-quack. You're gonna end up just going every week for an "adjustment" which will feel better for a day, then need more "adjustments". Spend money, lather, rinse, repeat. I'm also not convinced all that quackery isn't going to actually make the underlying injury worse. I mean dude is just cracking away right...No imaging or nothing to see what's actually wrong.

So go to a real doctor. Get an MRI. Figure out what's really wrong. Get it fixed surgically if needed.

And, finally, what made the biggest difference to my back was strengthening my core muscles so that they hold the spine in correct alignment. I did this with the help of a non-traditional physical therapist, a personal trainer, and exercise.

Yeah, a bonecracker is not where I would go for anything serious or anything for that matter.

[No_1]

Jon,
Some years back I began suffering pain traced to lower back issues. My Dr. told me to first get rid of my wallet then purchase a new bed. Turned out my pain was due to back alignment issue related to taking naps on my couch. Needless to say, I now no longer nap on the couch or carry a wallet in my pocket and my pain is pretty much gone.

Good luck - back pain is the worse.

[gmsharps]

I am now at 8 weeks toward recovery with the L3,4,5 that had bone spurs. I had issues ranging from over 40 years ago but at that time tolerable. As time went on the pain increased to the point, I had to say that's it. I had an x-ray and MRI and found the issue. Surgical was the only real solution. I'm paying attention to the rehab folks and hopefully will back to normal activity before too long. It seems the older you get the longer it takes to recover from stuff. Fortunately, I have a fantastic wife and she has been handling the bulk of the heavy lifting for a while and keeping me from doing to many dumb things.


gmsharps

[uscra112]

Stay the H away from chiropractors! They can only make it worse.
Get an MRI done and evaluated by a competent spine specialist; more than one if possible. You've got nerves being pinched, and there's half a dozen ways that can be happening. It is very likely to require surgery to fix, and even that's not guaranteed.

Been there - I'm in the sixth year of trying to alleviate it, first by physical therapy, then by steroid injections, then by epidurals. The first thing that did any good at all was a procedure called laminectomy, where the surgeon removes parts of the vertebrae that are squeezing the nerves. (I'm lucky, I don't have any disk degeneration. That's a whole 'nother level. My condition is called spinal stenosis. Essentially arthritis of the spine.)

The surgery didn't fix all of it, so then I was talked into a procedure called "ablation", where they actually sever the offending nerve(s). That was a disaster! Resting pain went from Level 4 to Level 9, and it took two months to subside back to Level 4, (rising to Level 6 when I walk more than 20 yards).

Two more months of aggressive "aquatic" PT have begun to improve that, but I'm never going to split and stack five cords of wood like I did in 2015.

[warren5421]

MRI

Just my Lumbar section 2022:

L1-L2: Disc bulge and degenerative facet disease. Mild spinal canal stenosis. Mild bilateral foraminal stenosis.

L2-L3: Disc bulge and degenerative facet disease. Mild spinal canal stenosis. Moderate to severe right and mild-to-moderate left foraminal stenosis.

L3-L4: Disc bulge and degenerative facet disease. Mild spinal canal stenosis. Narrowing of the lateral recesses bilaterally right greater than left. Moderate to severe bilateral foraminal stenosis.

L4-L5isc bulge and degenerative facet disease. Minimal spinal canal stenosis. Asymmetric narrowing of the left lateral recess. Severe right and moderate to severe left foraminal stenosis.

L5-S1isc bulge and degenerative facet disease. Asymmetric narrowing of the left lateral recess with contact of the descending left S1 nerve root. No significant spinal canal stenosis. Moderate to severe right and severe left foraminal stenosis.

IMPRESSION:
Multilevel changes of the lumbar spine


xRay T-SPINE 2019:

Minimal scollotic curvature of the thoracic spine. No acute vertebral body height loss. Mild multilevel disc height loss. Multilevel osteophytic change.


IMPRESSION:

Multilevel degenerative changes of thoracic spine.


xRay C-spine 2009:

No acute osseous abnormality. C5-C7 moderate to severe spondylosis.


I lived on Codine and Flexerel then the ones on high decided that drug use for the back was bad. They were cut off so pain went up, the only with draw I had.

Every time a Doctor looks at my xRays they tell me no operation!

Anyone that knows how to read xRays/MRI knows that there is pain.

You can learn to live with the pain, it just is out there in you mind. This started in 1961 and goes on today. When government gets into medicine you normally pay the price.

[1eyedjack]

Once was young and not too bright picking up heavy things I shouldn't have. Had back pain and degenerative issues as I aged. Now there's an erector set holding l4 l5 together .what we do in our youth we pay for when grow older

[jonp]

Jon,
Some years back I began suffering pain traced to lower back issues. My Dr. told me to first get rid of my wallet then purchase a new bed. Turned out my pain was due to back alignment issue related to taking naps on my couch. Needless to say, I now no longer nap on the couch or carry a wallet in my pocket and my pain is pretty much gone.

Good luck - back pain is the worse.

Im with you on the matress. People dont think twice about something they spend 8-10hrs a day on. I bought us a Helix, costs some dime and not for everyone but to me worth its weight in gold.
Like boots you wear every day some things are where you spend your money.

[uscra112]

Anybody that wants to discourage the recreational use of opioids need only tell them how severe the constipation they cause will be. I'm taking a mild one (Tramadol) 4x a day, and I buy Miralax in the giant economy size. Diet helps, of course, but a truly vegan diet is boring.

My own chiropractic story: Last couple of years before I retired I had severe neck pain. Medical doctors said nothing wrong, so I naively endured many months of "adjustments" that did nothing but pay for the chiropractor's new boat. Then I retired and moved to rural Ohio, which cut me off from lunches at the local Chinese restaurant. Pain soon gone. Turns out that I am one of many who are hyper-sensitive to mono-sodium glutamate!

[lightman]

I really feel for you. Hope you get some relief soon.

[xs11jack]

Hang in there Jon, we are praying for you.
Ole Jack

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Jon,
Some years back I began suffering pain traced to lower back issues. My Dr. told me to first get rid of my wallet then purchase a new bed. Turned out my pain was due to back alignment issue related to taking naps on my couch. Needless to say, I now no longer nap on the couch or carry a wallet in my pocket and my pain is pretty much gone.

Good luck - back pain is the worse.

Thanks, good info for sure.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Thanks to everyone who shared comments, both good and bad (about Chiropractors).

https://www.glencoefamilychiropracti...nstead-system/

The Chiropractic Practice I am seeing uses the Gonstead System. I'm told only 3% of Chiropractors use it. For my condition (shown by xrays), it seems like the best and most economical solution. After my research on it, I am sold on it. The Doc uses my xrays to formulate a long term plan for my spiral rehabilitation, of course I have to follow all the Doc's guidelines to best chance at success, and I plan to. I have five major issues in my spine, that need correcting. I have had 9 visits so far, and have seen/felt incremental improvement at each step of the way. There is a lot more visits I'm told, and plan to stick with it. A BIG plus for me, is this is a faith based practice.

and, as I mentioned before, it's painful for me to sit in front of computer (but getting better), so I am online very rarely, so be patient of you have any more thoughts for me.