Because someday it probably will haunt again
So, during the recent month this pain comes back again, and it struck harder and longer. I am talking about lower back pain, that I talked about a few times before on this blog.
How the hell this happened again?
Probably because I underestimated it, that I thought wouldn’t come back because in the first few days it was not that bad. I did some activities which I assumed related to lifting heavy objects while turning my upperbody just several degrees.
It could also because I sit too long on regular basis, lack of stretching too maybe. I am not sure exactly.
Like I mentioned earlier, I could feel my back hurted, but felt like “mildly”. And because of that, I still continued to “challenge” myself, that I confidently thought that it would be back to normal without any further pain.
Yes it was right. In the beginning.
But boy oh boy, it punished me really really bad in the next days, week, and even until about a month. That even standing up from my chair felt so hurtful. I couldn’t move properly, couldn’t sleep and wake up without feeling the pain in my lower back pain, and further down to sciatica.
Could not really walk longer without feeling any pain.
I just stayed inside most of the time during weekends. I even asked for work from home for a day due to the pain plus needed some rest after having over time too.
I asked my sister to treat me physioteraphically. Because she is. It felt better, and I thought it worked like it used to be. But I was wrong again. The lower back pain persisted, even getting worse.
I felt like a grandpa, even though I am still relatively “young”
I must say it affected me, both on the personal life wise, also work wise. It was so difficult to focus, because I could feel it in my nerve.
If you had ever had a painful toothache, assume it takes place in your back. Which is so painful.
As I was having this pain for quite a long time, I regularly searched contents about how to cure the pain, etc. I watched tons of youtube videos, read articles, and I found that lower back pain could happen to even younger people, and it could stay longer. Some people even had injections or even surgeries for that too.
I knew that it would be better had I went to see any health practitioners. I even thought of having accupunture treatment.
I didnt do any of that. Somehow I feared that it could just add more worries on me.
Yes I knew it was painful and should be treated medically, but I was just to stubborn for that.
Beside, in one of tons of contents I watched and read, it said (more or less):
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0 to 4 weeks of pain duration still considered “Acute”: It is still in the earliest phase. Usually will get better within this period.
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4 to 12 weeks considered “Sub-acute”, rehab should help in this period
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More than 12 weeks considered “Chronic”, it will need better treatment
So, because my pain was still in 0-4 weeks, I thought that by just keep doing “self-healing” like actively doing stretching before sleeping, after waking up, taking short break during office hours to stretch would help. Yes it did help relieve the pain.
But I still felt that pain.
Like I said before, I watched tons of videos about how to cure this lower back pain, there are so many stretching positions that could cure the pain, I did these, sometimes it put the pain away, but unfortunately not that long.
But it gets better, fortunately.
Sometimes I took “painkiller”, pills that contains ibuprofen to help me ease the pain. It did, but you know we should not do that regularly. So it was just occasionally when I couldn’t take the pain anymore and needed to sleep.
Now, after about a month, by taking times to rest, did some strecthing, and avoid lifting heavier objects, my lower back pain feels less painful.
But it is still there sometime, though not that bad anymore.
Now, realising that it is still there and can get worse at anytime with or without any warnings,
I can only say that I have no choice but to live with it.
No use of cursing or hating things, maybe just keep positive thinking, and stretching whenever I have any chance, because the pain could also be gone for long.
Thank God I still can breath well, eat well, sleep well, and work. We still have lots of things to be grateful though.
Cheers!