Lower Back Pain

From Friday November 6 to Thursday November 12 I went to CrossFit 7 days in a row and was understandably feeling a little beat down.  I took Friday off and then went for swim Saturday morning.  I felt some lingering tightness, but nothing horrible so I did some strength work on Saturday as well.  On Sunday, I did the gymnastics WOD and it crushed me.  I was working on kipping pull-ups and the explosive nature combined with fatigue forced me to really scale back the last 5 minutes of “Mary”

The net-net is that my back felt pretty bad.  Sunday, I did the usual foam rolling, vibration massage and stretching with no relief.  I took a Vicoden and was still up periodically through the night.

Monday morning I popped a 325mg Tylenol and another 500mg around 9:00 AM and the pain subsided significantly.  I took another 500mg around 2:00 PM and then left work early to get some professional help.

I went by The Joint in Arvada and was warmly greeted by Dr. Sean and his receptionist Sierra.  After filling out a lot of paperwork, providing an oral history and an evaluation, Dr. Sean went to work.  He treated two spots in my middle and upper back and then worked L5 in two directions.  His post assessment showed that my pelvis was more evened out and that I should come back on Wednesday.

That night I took 325mg of Tylenol which was pretty useless, but I supplemented that with a heat pad on my lower back which felt really good.

Tuesday morning felt as bad as Monday morning so I took 650mg of Tylenol which really kicked in around 10:00 AM.  Hopefully rest and stretching continues to help.  I intend to go to my appointment on Wednesday and can hopefully return to training on Friday.

After Wednesday’s session, the majority of the left lower back pain resolved, but the center of my back was now experiencing point tenderness that I had not previously noted.  I tolerated it the best I could and visited the chiropractor on Friday.  He did some adjustments but avoided L4 (where the point tenderness was isolated to).  He recommended no more heat and to ice it to reduce inflammation.

Starting Friday night I used ice and an Advil and my back felt substantially better.  It was pretty good on Saturday and I took another Advil Saturday night prophylactically.  This seemed to do the trick.  I ended up going to yoga Sunday morning without issue.