Does anyone have any tips/advice/resources for dealing with back pain? One of the number one places I experience pain is all through-out my back, lower, middle, up into the shoulders and neck; at the end of the day it almost a guarantee that my back will be hurting. My job and school is mostly online so I do spend quite a bit of my time sitting at a desk, but I try to get up and move and stretch my back a bit every 45 minutes or so when I can. I also try to do yoga each night, but my back is so tight/tense that even the very basic versions of poses end up making my back hurt worse. Anyone else deal with a lot of back pain? If so how do you manage it? Would it be a good idea to ask my doctor for chiropractor, physical therapist, etc. referral?
I've had it all my life, had it well under control due to 10' back exercises lying in bed every morning without fail, fibro flared it up again, now under control again. In my case the 4 areas you mention and more are all individual, altho partly interconnected.
A good orthopedist recommended a hard mattress and shoes without heels when I was 20. Others have said both are not necessary or even wrong, others say it's very individual - I still need both. With fibro I've had to add a soft topper and a lambskin. Carefully engineered insoles didn't help, it's still shoes without heels, sneakers in the summer and Roots or now barefoot shoes/boots in the winter.
Additional back "yoga" now helps me, e.g. holding your elbows and lifting your arms over your head, bending knees a bit, on a good day up to 20x, and holding it up on the last one, maybe breathing in that rhythm. I use about 20 of these exercises and have adapted the lying down ones to standing, so I can do them wherever I'm waiting. As with all exercises I (can) only do them in short stints, so regularly.
The fastest help for back & also limbs is something I've developed that I call
twist-stretching: Turn feet outwards, and arms up palms outwards for 20'', back backwards, then perhaps inwards and outwards again. I do it regularly all day, standing & if nec. at night, lying down.
So I agree fully with the PT saying keep your postures under 20' and with
@Geeena that it's hard to do, I've used alarms and all kinds of reminder things that only work if you don't ignore them...
Before fibro,
standing was much better than sitting for me, so like Jemima implies my workstation is a
bar table. So I can stretch invisibly (backwards) even in video meetings. As Jemima says
A swiveable & adjustable
bar stool helps change positions quickly. Having both next to a wall lets me lean sideways if nec.
This bar stool has also helped find out that most normal chairs hurt me because I need them
higher, so sitting at a slight slant / different angle. That also explains why I often try to slouch a while on chairs etc. until my hunchback hurts. I can also sit on the floor on a carpet, leaning my back on a couch for a while, then turning left and preferably right, with my laptop on the couch. That's actually my favourite working position now, altho standing has got better again. At the beginning of fibro the only position possible for resting & working at the same time was often lying on the couch, which makes typing harder of course. I've now started taking the bar stool everywhere, I use it instead of my kitchen chair too. As it's a bit high for the kitchen table it's not too good for my hunchback (a low chair is better for that), but my lower back can get worse quicker than my middle back. Higher chairs for me was the helpful idea of my acupressurist.
Staying in the tailbone/SIJ area: This can be the biggest pain in the - arse: and really make me mad & desparate, moan & shout. Main trigger is too much pressure on it, especially sitting in a soft armchair or couch which you sink into. The "lower back unrest" I often get at night I've now found is not something like RLS, it was especially being caused by
lying on my back too long (more than 5-10 mins), despite a soft topper and a lambskin there (also for paining thighs).
The bouncy gym ball, the knee stools (Balans I know them branded as) and orthopaedic chairs mentioned are all too tough for my tailbone.
In cars I either have to put the lean as steeply as possible or as reclined as possible or both (I never drive myself & hate cars anyway).
When sitting on chairs or couches I often put one foot up, the twist helps to a certain extent.
For my (slight) hunchback my morning back exercises were & are vital, plus the about 20 back "yoga" exercises whenever necessary. At
night I've been putting a small grain cushion, then that plus a small pillow, under it, lying on my back. It seemed to help the hunch itch & pain, but is maybe not to do too long. My acupressurist supported doing it for my posture, incl. shoulders back. Now I've realized that that's bad for my SIJ I do still do it a bit, but with my lower back twisted. I lie twisted a lot anyway. Recovery posture and then the upper leg back a bit or lot as needed. If nothing else helps a cold shower or at least cold washing takes the brunt off the pain.
As I'd been having a bit of rib, shoulder and neck problems the last days I've tested my arnica cream again, it worked pretty quickly.
For shoulders I use twisting and also the hunchback-pillow. For neck I do neck-twisting exercises: sideways and up and down movements, with a straight upright back (hand on breast helps) breathing in the rhythm (I can never remember which way round tho). The physiotherapists in the neck 'n' back I went to said then do them diagonally, increasingly tough (swing arms watching your hand, then arms with weights, then arms in the opposite movement to the hand). My acupressurist disagrees and says that's too tough on the discs, altho I have no problems with them. My back yoga book/DVD doesn't suggest the diagonal ones either. The neck'n'back group is way too tough for me, I can only do part of what they do, need to rest quite a bit of the hour and only go occasionally.
With everything I often need the help of my acupressurist: acupressure, trigger pointing, scar treatments, pneumatron and back mobilization (starting with swinging my whole spine to a fro). Before her an osteopath helped. Like Jemima I find the vids of PTs like Bob & Brad or Liebscher & Bracht good (they do German & English). If I have a specific problem & can't find something I look for that on youtube - sometimes it'll be those, but others are good too - shopping around to find something to fit
me...
What harmed a lot last year rather than help was a hyaluronic acid injection under CT in my lower back. A new orthopedist wanted to go thru my whole spine doing that. It took me 3 months to recover. Despite greatly increased pain she insisted I continue, my wife insisted I stop - my wife won.