Hurt my lower back by bending over, any tips for healing and comfort?
Ah, being 30. I haven't been 30 for even a full month yet, but I'm already feeling it. I bent over to pet one of my smaller kittens, except I kept doing it for longer than usual. Normally I'd pick it up and pet it, but not this time.
Now my lower back is aching and it hurts to move, especially trying to turn over in bed (I'm a side sleeper). It will eventually stop hurting until I need to change my posture or position again. It's better today than it was yesterday so it is healing. There have been no sharp pains, numbness in the legs or anything, etc. Just a strong ache. It's a bit difficult to walk, but it's manageable.
As for whether it's a slipped disk, pulled muscle, etc, I truly don't know. This has happened before in similar situations, so I'm expecting it'll happen again, probably more often as I get older.
Does anyone know some tips to speed up the healing process, and what I can do to improve my comfort while healing? I already know to take it easy, put ice on it, and take Advil, so I'm looking for other tips besides those.
Congratulations on your warranty expiration! There's no post-hoc fix that's as good as preparation, unfortunately. Treat it like a strain or sprain, and be sure to gently exercise it through its full range of motion to help the stiffness go away. In the future, consider something like yoga or another low-impact, full-body workout routine. Even a regimen of stretching will help considerably. My dad has had lower back issues for ages and he swears by it, along with an inversion table - that last is probably an extreme commitment, but if you can find a place to try one you might find that it helps.
Don't go to a chiropractor! They're not real doctors and can cause significant injuries.
I don't want this to a whole thing but I've had plenty of good experiences with chiropractors so has my partner and countless friends. I think it depends on where you are in the world.
It's certainly possible that a chiropractor will help someone's condition, but chiropractic is not based in science and therefore does not give consistent and safe results compared to modern medical practice. The idea of "spinal subluxation" that underpins most of chiropractic theory is only tenuously justified in medical literature. It is a pseudoscience - and like most of them, it can have some pleasant or therapeutic effects. It can also have harmful impacts, both directly as a result of treatment and indirectly when more-effective medical intervention is not sought for a problem.
So, your statement isn't false, but it's not mutually exclusive with what I said. They can deliver good experiences to some or even most of the people who visit them while still not being real doctors, and while causing a significant number of sprains, strokes, arterial dissections and deaths. Whether or not you're visiting one of the "good" chiros who manages to avoid those side effects is something that's difficult to ascertain in advance - and if you find out otherwise, the consequences are not reversible.
A friend of my mother's had her neck manipulated and it caused a major stroke.
I think back work is not as dangerous but I am not an expert.
Some chiropractors are charlatans. Some chiropractors actually know what they're doing, are good at it, and respect your wishes if there's something specific you don't want them to do. I have no idea of the proportions of good to bad, but if you found a good one, count yourself lucky. I've also been lucky.
Even the chiropractors who are "good" are ultimately buying into a pseudoscientific belief system and practice. It's possible that some of them may also be trained in proper anatomy and physiology and are essentially performing the same service as a massage therapist or physical therapist--but in that case you're probably still better off going to an actual licensed massage therapist or physical therapist over someone calling themselves a chiropractor, as there's always the danger you get someone who doesn't know what they're doing and causes real harm.
I'm going to echo a lot of the other comments that have already been posted because those things also worked for me
treat it like a sprain. That is, if the pain is sharp, start with ice. Once the pain is more of a dull ache, a warm compress will help circulation.
once the pain is a dull ache, and not a sharp pain, start gently stretching it. You want the stretch to be uncomfortable, but not painful as you hold it.
something people don't realize is that the muscles in your lower back are part of your functional core. Any amount of isometric holds that use your core, will help strengthen your muscles and help prevent it in the future.
Something that I didn't see mentioned elsewhere yet, if your lower back posture in your normal posture isn't the best, when you stretch like you did, it may cause pain. Fixing your lower body posture isn't easy, because you've been walking for 29 years, but walking correctly has done wonders for my lower back (no pain) and my core/stomach (I have less of a belly, but I haven't lost weight).
I'm, uh, lucky enough to have two slipped discs in my lower back since a youngish age, so an orthopedist told me about the core thing and more or less prescribed strengthening it. Has been working pretty well!
This may be a stupid question from me but what do you mean by walking correctly. How do I know if I'm not walking correctly?
Not a stupid question at all! Unless people are informed, most people don't consider how they walk ever in their lives. It's just something they do.
The queues for walking with proper posture, at least for me are
toes pointed forward, not outward. When your toes point outward, you're not engaging your glutes, and instead rely on your back and hamstring muscles to support yourself. If you don't use the right muscles to walk, it's easier to pull or strain the muscles that are already being overworked (like your back).
Tip your pelvis backwards/upward, not downward/forward. This is fixing something referred to as Anterior Pelvic Tilt, and while it's normal to have some of this naturally, a drastic tilt also puts the muscle work for walking from your glutes and core to your back and hamstrings. It's why, even though I'm reasonably athletic, I have no ass to look at and my jeans fall off.
Actively engage your core and glutes as you walk. You don't need to walk around stiff as a board at 100% tension, but your ab muscles help pull your pelvis into a neutral spine, and your glutes help balance that tension from the other side. The other benefit of this is it helps you look skinnier because you aren't sticking your belly out due to the pelvic tilt mentioned in 2.
Related to 2, If you learned to walk early as a baby, it's possible you learned this posture as your bipedal balancing method because as a baby you didn't have the muscle strength to hold yourself up. Instead you compensated by shifting your center of mass to balance better. I noticed it in my own baby pictures, and also with my daughters.
Thank you for the response it was quite insightful.
I'm confused on point 2. Wouldn't tilting back and up be provoking an anterior pelvic tilt?Confused anterior with posterior which is what I think I may have.
Firstly, from a standing position, keep your feet shoulder-width apart, bend at the waist, and reach towards the ground or as far as comfortable. Repeat 20 times (up and down is one). Then do a plank for at least 30 seconds but as long as you can. I find one minute is about the sweet spot for this warm up.
As others have said, lower back stretching or exercise is good but don't neglect core/abdominal as well. You want your entire midsection to be strong, so you don't end up putting more strain on your back by constantly activating it in cases where the core could pick up some slack.
That first stretch is really bad advice if the disc is herniated out backwards, it's just going to aggravate it further.
Better to do this stretch: https://youtube.com/shorts/nlXXXi0V8EM?si=RAQZZPcO5kUGCZHy
To add to this, if it's a psoas problem, which is a common cause of lower back pain, bending and then standing up from the waist is exactly what you want to avoid.
Planks are great though.
43 here, get used to it :)
Stretches that really help me:
Here are some exercises my doctor gave me to do when I slipped a disc.
although I will say they didn't really make much difference for me. What really changed things was that I started going to yoga once a week. Great for core strengthening, flexibility, and mindfulness. When I'm doing yoga, the small back injuries happen much less frequently. There is a studio here with "gently yoga" that is about my speed.
First, remember that our bodies are resilient. It's easy to go down a rabbit hole of what could be the precise damage but with this type of acute injury it isn't very helpful.
Rehab:
Prehab:
I've had bouts of back pain. My back has always recovered quickly, I do the above preventatively now. Still deadlift 240kg and squat 230 at 37yo.
it's probably because of the squatting + deadlifting that your back is so resilient. joints, muscle, connective tissue strengthen and adapt to load.
I'm sure it helps but it's also how it's been injured. As I've gotten older keeping up on these mobility movements, paying attention to early warning signs, addressing weaknesses with targeted intervention have all been important to keep up with my goals
What I proposed above is probably more than necessary for someone who's goals are more general recovery and health. I like to provide people with a variety of options because without knowing how they move or their overall goals, at least something will help and they can focus on those aspects while ignoring the rest.
fair point. for me I've actually stopped squatting completely as I felt like it was consistently hurting my back. I have however kept deadlifting, although I've switched to sumo. sumo once a week + cable rows seems to be enough stimulus that my lower back gets stronger but doesn't get beat up or achy. i think the fact that my gym has a deadlift platform + bumpers also helps with my back feeling happy. concrete floor + iron plates + sets of 400 i think my spine would dissolve.
That's awesome. I'm glad to hear that is working for you! Everyone varies but I find low frequency deadlift works well for the majority of people. It's a big dose of stress everywhere on the body.
This comment is good: https://tildes.net/~health/1e1s/hurt_my_lower_back_by_bending_over_any_tips_for_healing_and_comfort#comment-byba
DO THIS stretch
DO NOT DO this: https://tildes.net/~health/1e1s/hurt_my_lower_back_by_bending_over_any_tips_for_healing_and_comfort#comment-byav
Notice that all of the pictures from the first comment linked do not involve any sort of bending downward from the waist as suggested in the last comment linked. This is a terrible idea.
Source: Have had lower back pain since forever, can deadlift 160 kg. I do the stretch in the linked YT Short regularly, and it works wonders.
Edit: Also start lifting, your maximum strength only gets lower as you get older, so might as well get as close to your current maximum as possible so that you still have good mobility and strength later on in life. Squat, deadlift, bench press, and overhead press are the four core compound movements one should do in order of importance.
Can you expand or give some more sources as to why bending forward is a terrible idea?
Bending forward is like smashing down one side of a pb&j sandwich. The pb&j shoots out the backside.
In a human spine it looks like this: https://youtube.com/shorts/naIo8Lkfmb8?si=m3b8yt_C8bsa4U5z
So you are shooting that "pb&j" right into your spinal cord.
Edit: Also personal experience, bending forward without proper bracing just exacerbates lower back pain problems.
Valsalva maneuver: https://youtube.com/shorts/Qosswylw65Q?si=Bco40oeykH-8T3iF
PHYSICAL THERAPY. EVERY DAY.
Sit as little as possible.
Stretching, upward dog pose, nerve channel lubrication, plank poses, etc. Exercise your core to the max!
I had (have) a disc issue in my lumbar which occasionally causes me terrible discomfort, where if it fires off my whole back siezes up and I walk crooked fot a week. After learning proper PT methods, I can keep it at bay, but it needs to be kept up on as much as possible.
Good luck!
If you need to knock out the pain quick, ibuprofen can't be beat, but be careful. It can mask the pain but slow the healing because you aren't feeling and responding to things that are exacerbating the injury.
As well as all the good advice in other comments, I thought I'd add some things I learnt from physiotherapy.
In case it's ever relevant to anyone:
The best way to prevent my back from going in the first place is to actively engage my core when doing anything that involves lifting or bending. I always used to focus on lifting with my legs (ironically, to avoid back pain), but engaging your core seems at least as important.
The quickest way to temporarily relieve any mild pain for me is by placing my hands at the base of my back while standing, roughly at the waistline, and bending back until my
nipschest is pointing up.When I lose strength in one or both legs (i.e. not being able to lift them more than a few inches off the ground), the physio exercise that instantly sorts this is the alternating superman; I have no idea if this is what it's actually called, but here's an image to demonstrate it.
A lot of what you’re saying reminds me of me, except for me it was so bad that I was literally bedridden multiple times in my early 20s due to low back pain. Physical therapy changed my life. I have not had any back pain for like 6 years and am more mobile than ever. Don’t take this stuff for granted as just normal aging process. When you were a child, you could bend over for arbitrarily long periods of time without hardly an issue. The reason you can’t now, isn’t because you’re old. A physical therapist can help you identify how you’re moving in harmful ways, learn how to properly stretch out and strengthen the muscles you need to perform tasks like this once again, and how to be more mindful of your body mechanics so you don’t wind up losing these skills again.
If you want some particular things that really worked for me that i learned in physical therapy:
Learning about my transverse abdominis, and how to engage it so I could actually support my own L-spine properly and stop slouching: https://youtu.be/p8O04WLXFt8
Stretching my hamstrings with sciatic nerve glides: https://youtu.be/XP1yzpFR6ho (do these with your transverse abdominis engaged the whole time! be careful with these and don’t do them too fast and they shiuld feel like a stretch but only just enough that you can fully extend your leg)
Stretching hamstrings with quarterback squats: https://youtube.com/shorts/Lr6EAOBW6J0
The stretching hamstrings stuff is super important for avoiding future low back pain because having tight hamstrings prevents you from hinging at the hips, which is what you should be using to bend over for longer than a few seconds.
I hope you are able to find some relief soon. But if a person my size can pet my 5 lb kitty cat for 20 minutes without a problem, while literally having L spine degeneration, then I wouldn’t count yourself out either without talking to a physical therapist and really taking their advice seriously.
I am not a medical expert, so take this with a grain of salt. However, I was plagued with lower back issues from my late teens (when I hurt myself moving a bar fridge into my dorm room) up through to my late 20s (a couple of years into a job where I did hard physical labor) — but I am now nearly 40 and have not have any lower back issues for years and years, including the bulk of my years doing physical labor.
Lower back strain is not caused by age, except insofar as age might relate to other factors in your life, such as getting less exercise.
In my experience, this particular injury is caused by leaning over (particularly the further out you lean from your center of mass), and then engaging your back muscles to hold yourself in that position for a longer period of time than your back muscles are strong enough for, or lifting yourself up from that position too forcefully so that you strain the muscles. I learned how to deal with it using these methods:
Figure out if it's just muscular, and if it is: get a "blackball" deep tissue massage ball. Put it between your back and a wall, and then move around so it rolls over the offending muscles with as much pressure as you can stand.
3 minutes of that usually improves things quite a bit for me. Also, the frequency of muscular back pain went down a lot once I started purposely building stronger back muscles.
It doesn't need to be a fancy ball just for massaging your back. Tennis balls work great. I worked at a physical therapy office for several years and that's one of the very few things that all 8 PTs agreed on.
Interesting, I'll have to try that. I bought a set of different colored balls, and the black one is the hardest. I actually dislike the softer ones, but maybe they just feel a bit different and work all the same?
Anyway, they don't need to be fancy. The 3 ball set cost me maybe $5.
I've had back pain for years until a disc slipped and now I have some permanent albeit mild nerve damage.
This was a few years back and what seems to have fixed the issue for me is planks. I do them three times for as long as I can. I stop as soon as there is any pain in my lower back, or preferably before. I suggest to ask a professional about doing planks properly or at least do some online research yourself.
I'd strongly advice against bending over or squatting. I never have back pain anymore unless I do that too much.
this is absurd and counter-productive. these are natural, human movements. there's a difference between a weighted squat and squatting with nothing on your back. never doing these movements means you will lose muscle and mobility over time which puts you at risk for injury. it's better to find some sort of low-stress, gentle strengthening/mobility work (a lot of people like kettlebells) than live with the counterproductive belief that your spine is made of glass.
first of all, i'm sorry about your back pain. i will say though, back pain and chronic pain in general is actually not very well correlated to physical damage. a lot of people with herniated discs, torn labrums etc are completely asymptomatic, meanwhile on the opposite end of the spectrum many people with chronic back/shoulder pain have no physical signs of injury at all. the worst thing you could ever do for any sort of injury or pain is to never move. while i'm not suggesting you act like the maniacs on reddit squatting hundreds and hundreds of pounds with major back injuries, i think you are doing yourself a disservice living your life in fear of moving your back.
Completely agree.
The take it easy advice can go either way. Yes to taking it easy by doing light squats, etc. No to taking it so easy you do absolutely nothing, that is just a recipe for a weak bone/muscle structure + lots of recurrent injuries + extra long recovery times.
I have had doctors suggest the second, everything only got worse. When I ignored them and eased into things with cycling and rowing my back got much better. Then I realized I could still lift, the doctor had given bad advice, and my back became much stronger, with much rarer incidents of back pain or tweaks.
I meant doing these movements as a pain relief is probably not going to help. OP said the pain started after bending down, so I doubt doing the same thing even more is going to make it better.
Squatting and deadlifting actually involve less bending over than picking an oreo off the floor within 3 seconds, if done correctly. Somewhere around 30-40 degree angle to the floor with back in a neutral position, vs. the 90+ degrees you might bend over to touch your toes.
I'm 62 and have strugged with lower back episodes since right around your age. Only about a year ago did I find a magic-ish bullet. Well, two, actually, in combination.
Not all back injuries are the same, but as I understand it one common scenario is that the "QL" muscle (quadratus lumborum) goes into spasm, either on its own or in response to a strain. This seems to be what my back usually goes when it goes "out" so to speak. If there's severe damage to the muscle, a person pretty much has to wait it out, but often direct manipulation of the QL can un-knot it and bring the episode to an end. A good massage therapist can do this, or some people know how to roll around on a tennis ball till it hits the spot.
I never managed any success with the tennis ball method, and my young son who used to be able to walk on the magic spot is all grown up now and weighs almost as I do, plus he lives in Baltimore. Not only is he too heavy, he's a thousand miles away! What I now find works very well is a "Chirp roller" - which you can get at Target or various places online. They normally come in a set of three, small/medium/large. The small one is most effective, if you can stand to use it: put it on the floor, line it up with your lower spine (there's a groove that keeps it centered, you basically can't miss) and crab-walk back and forth on it. The small wheel, I warn you, will hurt like mad while in use. But thirty seconds or a minute or later, for me, the QL is neatly freed of its knots, as if steam-pressed, and recovery is very quick from there. So that's the first half of my regimen: when suffering lower back pain, try the chirp wheel as soon as possible.
The second thing that helps me, in a preventative sense, is a "butt walking" exercise to strengthen the QL and related muscles. Don't do this while hurt, do it while healthy. Sit on the floor with your legs straight out in front of you and spend some time propelling yourself forwards and backwards using just your buttocks.
What helped me was: lidocaine patches, laying belly down on the floor, cobra pose (start small - listen to your body to find your current limit) - the combination of the two was almost like a pain reset and let me get up moving a bit more; and I'm a side sleeper too, and was able to sleep on my side with my legs and back straightened out with a body pillow in between my legs (never slept like that before, but it's really pleasant). And don't relegate yourself to only laying down/sitting - recovery involves getting up and moving around as much as is reasonable for your level of pain.
Sucks doesn't it. I once hurt my back by opening a zipper. Can't do that kind of thing anymore without warming up first I guess. Oh well, as my mom says, it's better than the alternative. If it's a typical strained muscle, just take it easy for a day or two, and then gradually increase normal activities. Walking is good. Even better on uneven terrain. It will pass. In the long run it's probably good to have a strength routine that exercises the back muscles.
Just by opening a zipper? Ooh boy. Aging is fun! Thanks for the tips. I'll look into the strength routines.
Depending on how bad the strain is, you might want to wait a few days and rest it before trying to exercise.
If you have access and it's bad I would consult a physical therapist.
In my experience with bad back pain, lying down or standing is better than sitting.
I hope you feel better soon
Spinal fusion patient chiming in! Biofreeze is a godsend for providing some alleviation from the pain. IcyHot is also good, but BioFreeze is like have an ice pack in lotion form. If the pain is affecting your ability to sleep, it will wrap you in a cooling affect long enough to fall asleep.
Try a small amount on an easy to wash part of your body first! Biofreeze is so extremely uncomfortable and painful for me. It's like what would happen if you drank super potent hot sauce mixed with peppermint extract, but on your skin instead of in your mouth. Weirdly, IcyHot is fine. Most of my office (Orthopedics) swears by the stuff, but I'm not the only one that hates it.
First, I'm so sorry. It's part of getting older, it seems. I threw my back out in early December, and it only started to heal up in mid-January.
Heat was the biggest helper to me. Voltaren and muscle relaxers didn't do much at all, but I am also weirdly not sensitive to medication, so ymmv. I would definitely recommend a back brace for a tiny bit, but only if you're going to be walking around a bunch, sitting or laying down in one isn't comfortable at all.
The only PT stretch that worked well for me was pelvic tilts. You'll lay flat on your back, put your knees up, shoulder-width apart, and just rol your bum up without getting off of the ground.
Most of the advice is to keep moving. Take paracetamol (carefully) for pain, and ibuprofen if there's swelling.
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/back-pain/
https://backcare.org.uk/i-have-back-or-neck-pain/library/exercise-for-back-pain/
https://www.nhsinform.scot/illnesses-and-conditions/muscle-bone-and-joints/exercises/exercises-for-back-pain/
Hey! This just happened to me! And I'm 28. It took me many weeks to heal, maybe six, I kept thinking it was getting better and then it wouldn't. I want to say that I'm at the point where I feel normal again, consistently. I'm not sure why my back pain started. I think it had to do with a combination of bad posture during using my phone or being at the computer, and lifting improperly with my back and not my legs, as is recommended.
What helped me feel better was a heating pad on my back. I don't like the ice packs. I did end up going to the doctor a week ago about it, since it had been hurting for so long, and she thinks it was a sprained or pulled muscle. She said to do the heat pad if it feels good, so if you like those I would recommend it.
I took ibuprofen for pain, but I read it's better to avoid pain relievers unless the pain is severe, like not letting you sleep, so that you know the limits of your body. So I didn't take much pain relievers.
I would also recommend a magnesium salt bath, it's good for muscle pain. Magnesium supplements might help as well if it's muscle related. I actually have this lotion called "epsomit" or something, it's a lotion with magnesium in it, a lot easier than taking a magnesium bath.
I think what helped me heal was some core exercises. I would look up something like "core exercises lower back pain" and see what is offered. I would also check multiple articles to make sure an exercise is more-or-less universally recommended and not just one random blog. Most of the guides for healing lower back pain talk about not just laying in bed. They recommend a lot of active healing, which means staying active and moving around as much as you can and as much as this comfortable to make sure your muscles don't atrophy.
The simple exercises I've been doing are bird-dogs, this knee-to-chest exercise, and planks.
For sleeping, I would recommend getting a pillow. For side sleepers you put the pillow between the knees, it helps keep your back aligned.
I hope you feel better soon!
I'm curious on how to prevent this nowadays. I just turned 28, but I joke that I have a 50 year old body because I used to do wrestling in high school, my knees are awful. On top of that I've been lifting very heavy to try to get to the 1k club and cutting a bunch of weight in general. I know that it's inevitable but still! If anyone has any ideas please lmk.
The biggest help for me has been a small heating pad, it really helps relax the muscles.
Physical Therapy can do wonders.