General Question
What kind of back pain am I describing?
Like others, I know enough to go to the doctor and not rely on flutherfolk for medical advice. But first I’d like to know if this fits a known pattern of some sort.
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Two episodes, different from anything I’ve ever had before. Lots of prior lumbar pain and chronic cervical, but nothing like this. Same profile both times:
• Locus in the thoracic region; consulting a chart, I’m guessing about T6 – T8.
• Onset about 6 hours following relatively strenuous physical activity—i.e., strenuous for me: packing and loading up for a week away in a housekeeping cottage, unpacking and setting up, including lots of bending over, carrying boxes, bags, etc.; and then, a week later, packing up, coming home, and unpacking. (I’ve done this many times before; this was first time for this pain.)
• Onset about 9 p.m.; spasms lasted 12 hours.
• Spasms of pain in thoracic region: sudden full wave of severe pain, broad and wide, like sheet lightning. Can’t tell if it is muscle, bone, nerve, or please, not that, please organ.
• Frequency of spasms: intervals range from about 5 or 6 seconds to 25 seconds, but the most common interval—more than half of those we timed—is 19 seconds.
• Every spasm compels sudden movement; can’t sit/stand/lie still and take it. Must shift position reflexively. Every ~19 seconds.
• No comfortable position, no position gives relief—not sitting, standing, lying down, bending over, bending backward, leaning to either side, or hanging from a support above.
• Much swearing, much whimpering. (REM to self: learn some new swear words.)
• Ibuprofen (3) did not seem to do anything.
• In between spasms, feel mostly normal, though the area remains “hot”—as if lit up.
• Eventually, heat (lying on heating pad) seemed to help a little.
• Pain is asymmetrical. It feels symmetrical, but it was possible to lie on one side and not on the other.
• After about 5 hours I was able to force myself to try to relax into it instead of bucking against it (thank you, zen and yoga), and that helped a little.
• Tylenol 3, with codeine (2), eventually enabled me to sleep.
• Spasms abated after about 12 hours. Abnormal pain (as opposed to ordinary everyday pain in cervical and lumbar areas) lasted another 12. After two days, felt “okay.”
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