Back injury

I had this problem a couple of years ago. It was terrible. The pain would keep going away and then all of the sudden it would hit during a game and I couldn't play any more.

I went to a bunch of doctors but they didn't know what to tell me. Finally, an emergency doctor who was a dad of a player on my team spent some time trying to figure out what the problem was. He told me all I needed to do was stretch my hamstrings. So, I did and after a while the pain stopped.

Good luck.

 

first off no one who is not a doctor should be telling anyone to take pills, especially anti-inflammatories because you may have health issues the could preclude you from such meds.

secondly taking any anti iflammatory med like advil for longer than a week can do some damage especially if you have higher than normal blood pressure.

heat is not the ideal choice of physio/chiro's. it is just one modality depending on the situation. the science is clear: ice helps to releive swelling, while heat increases blood flow.

if there is a soft tissue injury or an area of imflamation, your body is signaling swelling to continue in that area, by heating it you are making the problem worse. by icing you are reliving the swelling. hence why you should ice after games and heat before you warm up.

back pain is a complex and difficult injury especially for athletes. taking it easy is one thing but total rest is usually not good unless you have severe disc or muscle damage which you probally dont becuase if you did you wouldnt even beable to get up and would be on a massive pain killer all day.

i work int he rehab industry and see coulntless back pain cases and see the medical reports from some of the best back specialists around and if they cant do surgery or cortisone injections, there isnt much. theraphy is always helpful to keep you limber but most back pain will resolve in due time without any specific treatment beyond streching and staying generally acitve.

i say this on the basis of years of back pain, working with back specialists and all the data compliled in north america about back pain cases on my side. so im no expert but i am well imformed of this.

yoga is shown to be very helpful ,but before going any farther if things are that bad and there is pain refering down your leg, yous hsould consider a CT scan or MRI. if they show nothing it doesn mean theres noting wrog with your back , its just probally soft tissue related.

walking is always good. just ice it after wards, 10 minutes on, 10 minutes off. for a good hour. heat feels good buy makes swelling worse, which limits your range of motion and makes the pain worse.

read this book:

"the mind body prescription" by dr. john Sarno.
teh best book i ever read. remember there is a huge mental and emotional component to low back pain.

good luck!

J

 

i cant say only you and your doctor can really make the most informed decision.

generally if you can still move around and train, even at a lowered capacity thats a very good sign that you will gradually pull out of your back problems.

again if you had something more serious or severe you probally wouldnt even be able to train at all let alone walk.

just remember that backs are very complicated and doctors really dont know that much, back pain is the most common medical ailment that men report to doctors in north america and the vast majority of the time they resolve on their own.

ive had the same probelsm too, training and then im a mess the next day or so. thats okay, as long as you feel better a few days later youll be gradually getting better.

its good to train a bit, give extra rest time and do some light bike or walking in between to stay limber.

really wamr up well to prevent re injury.

people will throw alot of shit at you about ways to get rid of back pain, just remember, the human body despite soem defects is very strong and resiliant. our backs have managed to take us quite far under much more physically demanding conditions. appreciate that things take time to heal due ot the complexity and sheer size of back musles. also understand taht when we are stressed about things that some people get headaches, others get stomach aces, others get high blood pressure and many more get back pain.

it may be "triggered" from something simple like bending down but thats not reallythe reason why. its a build up of tension and stresss just like a head ace but in the back. youd be surprised how mcuh this affects ones pain.

doesnt mean its all in the head or that its fake, its very real pain, just dont buy into thte bullshit about "slipped discs" because there is no actuall evidence that a slipped disc is the reason for the pain, many peopel have them their whole lives and never had aa problem, while otehr people are debiliated with back pain and have perfect mri/CT scans.

dotn relay on physical or mechanical causes for back pain, very often they are a mix of reasons.

good luck and stay active. !!!!

J

 

that's not necessarily true. I had back problems, played and trained for 3 months, and it never got better- continually worse, actually.

 

again thats why i said "its a good sign that youll get better" and not:
"its a gaurantee youll get better"

backs area complicated and there is no absolute method of resolve for pain, hence the reason why there is so many differnt approaches and theories as to why back pain exists and how to get rid of it.

you were still active for months despite the pain, do youbleieve if you sat on a couch all day feeling sorry for your self your back would have magically healed? as well have you considered how much worse your pain may have been had you not trained?

people generally dont consider that end of things, i deal with enough clients in my job with debilitating back pain and see the erosion in their lives when they simply give up and lay on the couch due to the pain and begin the downward spiral of medication, pain focused behaviour and depression. they cling to the doctors words of "slipped disc" or pinched nerve. read up on the term pinched nerve and you find medically its a total misnomer, any time a nerve is pinched it eventually dies off as opposed to the notion that it causes ongoing pain. the sciatic type pain which is described as a pinched nerve often has more to do with the muscles in the hamstring/gluts strangling the encapsulated nerve. loosen these muscles up over time and the pain will tend to disapate.

tight hamstrings are often a greater precursor to back pain than doing something physically exerting. thats been my source of back pain too and i have to continually work on that to stave on the pain.

people tend to overpersonalize their experience of back pain as the post i quoted has done, and i can no doubt appreciate that, just remember that its masssive and complex region of the body the back and pain in that area can stem from many different causes and there are many ways to skin a cat!!!

staying active is the one concensus among doctors to treat "most" cases of back pain, back int he 70's its was always bed rest, even after back surgery now they advocate "active" rehab and return to daily living as soon as possible.

good luck!!!!

 

D I S C L A I M E R

BigSoccer is neither a medical doctor nor does it play one on television.

We're all just a bunch of hacks.

end D I S C L A I M E R

That said, one of the things that has kept me relatively injury-free and lessened the impact of injuries has been tai chi. It is low impact, holistic, with some great stretches.

Without strain you can see progress in a relatively short time frame. If something hurts, don't do it. Modify the depth or length of motions to a comfortable level.

Combining tai chi with yoga breathing will increase your endurance. IMHO, unlikely that it will do much for quickness or short-burst speed.

 

the doctors and physical therapist all told me that if I sat out about 2-4 weeks from the incident of injury, it wouldn't resolved itself without season long pain ending in physical therapy. and, the only pain in sitting out would've been mental.. but season results would've been better and I probably would've scored 15-20 more goals because I would've been able to at least sprint to balls, and jump for headers.

 

i see what you mean but the qeuestion is how active you remained.

its one thing to suggest you still had pain but were still playing competitive soccer. its another to say you continue light training or even occasional moderate training while recovering.

its a question of magnitude.

 

Not saying all the stuff in here isn't good, but as another suggestion (might have already been said) you might consider a yoga class. Even just a beginners class would give you a lot of exercices to help your lower back. The one I had (in college) basically showed us a bunch of exercices that would make our transversal abs stronger, thus, less stress was put on the back.

I hope you fix your problem!

mrfocus

 

go see a back specialist

 

first off get an MRI done and an x-ray to rule out a slipped disc, any growths, or degenerative disc disease, or even a torn musle.

if you can still walk and move around even with pain you probaly have a small slipped or herniated disc at the worst, but probally you have little or no actual physical findings.

that doesnt mean there isnt anything wrong with you.

generally they say to stay moderately active with periods of prolonged rest, ie: instead of a 45 mintue jog with some wieghts after wards, do a 30 minutes light jog and rest for 3 days before doing it agian.

stay active and try to strech as much as possible with good periods of rest in between.

usually people go to either extreme and do nothing or do too much, both will ******** you up.

for me i found long brisk walks outside even on my lunch break at work helped when the pain was bad because i could get a good walk in, and rest a day and do it again and at least walk striaght, otherwise i was stooped over.

streching while keeping your back straight works wonders.

using anti imflammatories as lon gas your doctor clears you may help after activity.

read the book: the mind body perscription by dr. john sarno.

good luck

 

i had pretty bad back for a while...i still sort of have it. i got an MRI done and it turns out i had a bulging disc in my neck and my spine was too straight. i saw a chiropractor and that helped so much. my back/neck caused me to be dizzy, get head aches and i really couldn't concentrate on anything at all (i hope you're not getting that cause it was terrible). you definitely need to go to a doctor if you're experiencing that stuff. also, another simple thing is to pay attention how you sit and sleep. don't slouch when you sit and when you sleep, don't sleep on your stomach.

how'd you get this back injury by the way? did it just appear all of a sudden or was it something that gradually got more annoying?