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back, neck spasm. disk hernia. back went out. stiff neck. spine.
I thought I would start a thread with a good searchable title about this subject. I think I've raised the issue before, and I think @orion mentioned some exercises. I had trouble finding the convos though, so have started this thread.
As the article above mentions, this is a pretty common problem. And it's a miserable thing to have happen. I think these things have been happening to me since, wow, before I moved out of my parents house half a lifetime ago. So it isn't just an old-age thing, but we do associate the problem with old age.
I'm glad the article mentions that electrolytes seem to be part of the issue. I suspect that they do indeed.
And I also agree with the article that a series of ignorable strains devolve into the "pain from hell".
Once I ended up with a spasm just from opening my car's moon roof.
To me, it appears that people I suspect of VA toxicity often suffer these injuries.
When I mentioned to my vet that I thought my cats had hypervitaminosis A, he said that he didn't think so.
"because they didn't have excess boniness along their spines".
Here is an example, which I just quickly found, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15994105/
(just as an aside, I think their kidney failure was a pretty good reason to think they did have VA toxicity, especially in light of the high-VA diet I fed them)
@lil-chick have you seen my comments on toxicity being shunted through kidneys? (Foamy urine thread!!)
I’m more and more seeing this as highly significant. Liver issues mean that toxicity gets put into blood and has to exit via kidneys. I’ve realised that I get back pain when this is happening. I get a set of symptoms that I now recognise. Loads of water drinking is my best solution so far. Sounds strange but I’ve tested this over and over now. Improving liver health is the real solution.
Yes, isn't it interesting that both can be in the same area. Super interesting.
In my lower back I actually feel the disk (yikes) trying to herniate, and then the muscles clamping down.
I once had a hydrated kidney. I remember the doctor trying to make the differential diagnosis. The kidney pain doesn't react to things like position and muscle usage like the spasm pain does.
One of the things that is a very big relief to many people with spasm is to just lay on a flat surface-- while almost nothing touches kidney pain, it is more constant. Of course, you can't do that for 4 days until things settle down LOL. You know how a very bad leg cramp will cause you to limp the next day? Well, a very bad back spasm will have you walking all hunched over for a few days. You literally can't stand up straight, the muscles won't allow it. When at it's worst, I couldn't even wipe my butt, just couldn't reach.
First read Pete Egoscue’s book about pain. Then in support of the book, Look at YouTube Sonima channel for Egoscue exercises. The first thing with a spasm is rest and relaxation, including laying floor with legs resting at 90 angles on a chair or coffee table for 40 minutes until the lower back muscle c C release the spasm.
i had a lot of these my whole life. I have learned to move differently through first individual Pilates instruction, and maintain with Pilates Reformer sequences.
yoga doesn’t seem all that helpful (i did Iyengar)
@mmb3664 Interesting that you grew to not want the coconut water. I'm reposting this blurb that I posted to mmb's thread, just so that people who search for back spasms can read it and comment.
How about this for an idea: maybe *some* of us need a lot of salt and not a lot of other electrolytes and water.
Some of us could have adrenal insufficiency (a condition in which salt is useful). (how low-adrenal is interacting with VA is an interesting chicken-and-egg question). Perhaps we have to be careful about taking loads of OTHER electrolytes and water, so that the balance doesn't become low salt! (personally I almost never get thirsty)
I was on a list yesterday, reading about electrolyte balance, in which people were trying to pinpoint which electrolyte they most need, and someone simply commented, in a very "Dr House" manner: "It's always salt!". That kind of blew me away, because all you ever hear about is people saying salt is bad LOL.
I *cut back on salt* for a few days and *increased foods with other electrolytes and water*, and I had *two* foot cramps in the night rather than my usual one or zero. My back hasn't let up either. I could see how chugging down coconut water might do a similar thing (ie it might *increase non-salt elecrolytes* and *water*)
It's interesting that Addison's (low adrenal) disease comes with a symptom of hyperpigmentation in the areas of sun exposure (and other hyperpigmentations such as on nails, gums). I could have a small amount of that. Is this a sign that Addison's people have backed-up carotenes?
People say stress is related to back spasm. Why would that be? If back spasm is about low-adrenal that might make sense. I was having a stressful week, but I was doing something I normally think of as relaxing (gardening). Do you think of lifting weights/working out as relaxing? Perhaps in a high stress week we need more salt. I know I crave it in those times.
(eating a salty pretzel now)
Another point that I would like to make, although I'm it sure it also doesn't apply to everyone, is that people whose kidneys are struggling can become overly high in potassium. If some of us are going down the same road that Grant did, perhaps we might have struggling kidneys but don't know it yet. If electrolytes are about balance, perhaps that is another possibility in the electrolyte imbalance situation. Perhaps we need to moderate our potassium. Anything can become toxic.