Back 2 Back

 I mentioned that while we were in Canada, the hotel beds were doing me no favors. Well, in the time since, I don't know how much I can blame those beds anymore.

About two weeks ago, I realized my back was aching in the same spot it was when we were in Canada -- lower right side, lumbar region, etc. I didn't think much of this because I have almost always had back pain of one sort or another and I am no spring chicken anymore -- I turn 43 next month -- and with that I know that I can just randomly develop aches and pains out of the blue for no other reason than simply getting old. 

Over the course of two weeks the pain got steadily worse -- no matter how I slept, the position, the place, etc, my back went from aching at me to screaming, pretty consistently. Ibuprofen became my friend but, after a while, didn't do much to dull or wipe away the pain. My back got stiff and hard to move.

And then the spasms started.

Take your fist and quickly clench it, over and over. That's what my back muscles were doing, in that exact spot, over and over. Involuntarily. It became hard to stand. It was at times nearly impossible to walk. I would cry out in pain because I couldn't not cry out, that is how bad it felt. It felt like I was being stabbed.

"Is it a kidney stone?" Daisy asked. 

"I don't think so," I said. "This seems entirely muscular."

I couldn't necessarily rule out a kidney stone offhand, but I know what they feel like. This did not feel like that, and I did not have the nausea and vomiting that the kidney stone pain gave me. I also could not feel it moving through my urinary tract, which would have been another telltale sign. But what if it were a much smaller stone, one that didn't scrape my insides as much as it traveled? I also got constipated with my last kidney stone, and that wasn't an issue this time around. And I'm not peeing blood. So...like I said, I couldn't completely rule it out, but the symptoms did not seem to be matching. 

Last weekend it was so bad that when we were visiting Daisy's parents, Mama put a lidocaine patch on me on my back to try to dull the pain. It worked for the time I had it on, which again tells me muscular. 

I fought off and on with this pain and the spasms for several more days, until one morning last week I had gone to bed, gotten back up about two hours later to pee, and the spasms started stronger than ever before -- I was frozen in place, bracing against the wall and doorjamb, and could not move, could not walk. My entire body was locked up, all stemming from that one muscle group that was spasming like a fish out of water flopping on a wooden dock. 

"Do we need to get you to the hospital?" Daisy asked me, very concerned.

"No," I said, through ragged breaths. "It's just spasming really hard and I can't stop it."

I eventually made it across the room to my side of the bed, with great effort, and very slowly sat down. I was stuck in that position for probably five minutes before my muscles were relaxed enough to let me lay down fully and try to sleep. 

I now know how people can get so much at the end of their rope to where they beg for back surgery. 

Some days are better than others. Some days I feel mostly normal. Others I feel so stiff I can barely move and need the heating pad against my back almost all of my waking hours.

Sleep -- even good, restful, fulfilling sleep -- does not seem to help. I have slept a full 24 hours of this weekend at various times and in various places and the slightest wrong movement once I'm awake can set off hours of pain and spasms. I can say that it seems when I nap on the couch on my lunch hours at work, that makes it worse. But sometimes I need the rest and Pete needs his teddy-bear time. 

I know, I am getting old. I am not the man I once was, full of vigor and flexible limbs and moving parts. I am no longer the man who could bike six miles a day to and from working at the newspaper, or the man who spent multiple hours per week in the gym. I know it takes me much longer than ever before to recover from even minor aches and sprains or minor bodily injury, and I am not in shape at all. I mean, by body is a shape, but it's not in shape.

No, I don't think I have a hernia. No, I don't think I "threw my back out." The aches/spasms are worse when I'm stressed out, which is...well, pretty constantly most days, for one reason or another. I have tried to "move normally" and stop myself before the spasms start, and sometimes this works and my muscles relax a bit, and I'll be okay.

And then yesterday morning happened. 

I felt fine -- stiff, a little sore, but fine -- and went to the bathroom. On the way back I got the worst bout of spasms I've had yet, and they would. not. stop. I was frozen in place; I could barely walk. My entire body was seized. Each movement of any muscle I could use to walk or even really move to brace myself against the wall or doorjamb was like being stabbed. I was screaming in pain and I apologized profusely to Daisy because I could not help it. 

I was, eventually, able to hobble to my office and to my computer chair, where sitting upright and trying not to move any more than possible helped slow down the spasms, but not stop them. From there I was able to track my Walmart delivery order I'd placed shortly before my back waged war on me that morning -- but in which I had ordered a box of Doan's back pain pills. Maximum strength. Everything hurt. Every muscle in my torso was clenched and on fire, trying to compensate for the spasms in my lower back. When I could move, I hobbled across the room and leaned against the dryer, and Daisy applied a lidocaine patch to my back and used a percussion massager on it, neither of which really seemed to help.

Through it all, my thoughts were like what did I do to myself? Why is this happening? How could I have hurt myself this badly? I didn't have answers to any of these questions. I still don't, even now.

In the end, the only thing that helped was being able to get some next-level muscle relaxers. 

Over the span of about twelve hours (and two of those large pills), the spasms subsided and my body let me regain control over it again. Supplemented here and there with a dose of the Doan's back pills, I am almost completely back to normal. My back muscles there are still strained and very sore, but I'm no longer spasming and I am no longer unable to move. I'd say that at right now, I'm at about 90%.

But the question of why all of this transpired is beyond me. 

I cannot completely rule out a kidney stone or kidney infection, as mentioned above; I am diabetic, I have had a kidney stone in the past, and both are known to cause back spasms -- but I have had zero other signs of kidney stones or infection. 

I could have been constipated or had a blockage of some sort that shook itself loose; I am iffy on how likely or unlikely this is because I think my guts have felt pretty normal since we returned from Canada -- and that's the least graphic way I can describe that, really. Normal for me.

Diverticulitis? Unlikely. Hernia? Unlikely. 

My only guess is that I somehow pulled, and kept pulling until it became excruciating, a back muscle -- somehow, some way, by merely existing and/or sleeping in a position that at the time was comfortable but was overall detrimental to my physiology. I do not have good posture, and as I get older, it worsens with age and inactivity. I noticed that when I napped in my chair over the weekend, the pain lessened, and when I slept in the bed, it worsened. Is it the bed doing it to me? Also unlikely -- the back pain started when we were still in Canada. Could've been the beds up there, but you'd think once we returned home that would've righted itself. 

In the end, I'm left with few answers. I'm just going to be grateful that it seems like this episode is finally ending, and I hope to be fully recovered within the next few days.