Your general practitioner MD has no clue what to do about backs. Go find a physiatry specialist, no need for a referral unless you’re on an HMO. They’re the most knowledgeable MDs (not chiropractors) for spine problems. The professional sports teams use them. They’ll definitely do an MRI first and then prescribe PT. Next would be cortisone injections, and their last resort is surgery.

My back has been sore for a while, and I was always ‘rounding’ it to try and stretch it out (child’s pose, touch my toes, bath with Epsom salt, rolling on my back with my knees tucked into my chest etc)

What really helped relieve tension was doing the opposite, and forcing my butt/hips backwards. Basically, enhancing the dip in my lower back by either using my hips or my shoulders.

Like, standing captain Morgan style (one leg up on stable coffee table, or bathtub) and lifting your arms up and leaning back while also pushing your hips back and stomache out. This should be a gentle stretch! Obviously don’t do anything painful and listen to your body, but bending (flexing?) backwards has helped my back where bending forwards just made everything worse.

Try and maintain this shape when bending down, not just stretching, maintaining a straight back when bending over has helped a lot with both keeping tension away and being aware of my back form.

Basically, try to keep the shape in the second image (DON’T LIFT IF YOUR BACK IS SORE). When I stretch like this I’m generally standing straight and not bent over. this pic is just the general shape you want to maintain and ‘exaggerate’ while stretching.

Also, use ice packs and not heat to relax tight muscles.

It’s Kind of hard to explain, but the tension in my back went waaaaay down the next day, and has been significantly better since.

If it helps, I don’t go to the gym or anything, by back pain is born of mild sloth lifestyle, bad stretching, and poor form bending over.

Hey google “phoenix stretch” for a great lower back pain relief.

Also no shit your doctor does nothing. Our society has decided to task doctors with being the brunt of junkie interaction (instead of just legalizing drugs to let adults make their own choices, and let doctors focus on medicine, and cops focus on crime with victims).

Even if you make it 100% clear that you are not seeking pain management but rather want to identify and fix the problem, they interpret it as a cover story for drug seeking.

It’s horrific. Doctor refused to prescribe a scan for my knee once, because she thought I wanted pain meds. I told her “no I want to see what’s going on with my knee”.

Here’s the facts:

• I was skiing and fell. My knee made a popping sound as I fell. The ski was pointed backwards and didn’t come off
• I was able to walk, but developed sharp pain on the inside back of my knee
• my leg was wobbly and unstable. I could barely balance on it
• my knee had a persistent sort of “hollow” feeling, which was exactly the same feeling I got in my wrist when I snapped a ligament in my wrist

Based on that, she saw no reason for further diagnosis as obviously nothing was wrong. I could, after all, still walk albeit with pain and tons of tightness developing in my calf.

Why? Because she thought the whole thing was a scam to get drugs. Using a scan to actually observe the knee tissues and see what was up, would have answered that question. But in her mind it wasn’t a question. She wasn’t thinking “Is this guy a drug seeker?”; she was thinking “This guy is a drug seeker”.

Despite me saying again and again the pain was well within tolerable limits and I had no need to reduce the pain, and had no desire for any pain meds. I wasn’t the one to bring it up. I just started talking knee and immediately she’s like “I’m not giving you pain medication”.

I said “fine. I’m not here for that. I want a scan to diagnose this”

Anyway, can you tell I’m a little bitter about doctors?

But it’s not their fault. The way our drug laws are structured, it funnels all of society’s junkies straight into their waiting rooms. Then they’re not spending their days practicing medicine, but rather counterespionage.