It’s been a number of years now since I’ve dealt with any kind of significant back pain. Which is almost ironic considering that 1) I still have degenerative disc disease, and 2) I’m still carrying around more weight than I ought to be.
But I’m not stupid about how I move. Over the years, I’ve learned how to carry myself so as to put the least amount of stress possible on my body and my back. I squat down to pick things up and use my legs to lift. I try to maintain at least relatively decent posture. I work to keep my weight centered over my feet and legs. All of this I do without thinking now, such second nature as it’s become to me.
Not that any of that matters much when it’s stupidly trivial things that make my back go out.
Such as this past Sunday evening. All I did was step into my back room to throw something into the trash, and my back let out a ‘little’ warning spasm that nearly put me on the floor. Just a spasm, but it messed up my back enough that I’ve been dealing with significant back pain all this week and moving gingerly.
I can’t even stand up fully straight. When I stand as straight as I can, my hips are still angled to the right side, the side where my spasm took place. I don’t know exactly how the muscle structure works to make that happen, but I look like something right out of a funhouse mirror.
My back has been slowly and steadily getting better throughout this week, but it’s definitely been a challenge at work, where I’m on my feet ten hours a day and doing regular lifting and moving of things. Hopefully, by next Monday, my back will be mostly back to normal, and then we can go a while again before this happens again.
