Some months ago, the inflammatory back pain that I got on and off in my upper spine started to get much, much worse, to the point where I was having to lie down to relieve it and because it was so debilitating. It got worse when I was more tired and I thought that it was my worse fatigue that was causing it to flare. It has two locations; in my spine (at a point level with my shoulder blades) and a couple of inches to the left.
It was becoming quite a distressing symptom and I consulted my GP about it. Over the last few months I've worked my way through various ineffective painkillers with bad side effects trying to find one that worked and tried a TENS machine which put my intracostal muscles into spasm.
The solution - early days but I've been pain-free for a week, which is unusual - was suprising. A physiotherapist visited me at home and asked me about how I lived. I showed her the mat I lie on to read As I mentioned on the boards a while back, I place a perspex board on two supports like a bridge, put a book on top and lie underneath it so I can read while lying down. I have to lie down every hour for about 15 minutes so spend at least four hours a day lying flat.
To my surprise, she said that lying dead flat is bad for the back. She suggested some exercises to do (very few reps - bending back and forth while sitting down, twisting side to side, and shoulder shrugs) and to try lying with a small towell rolled up and underneath my spine. This didn't really help but this week I've had a bad cold and have had to take properly to my bed, with no reading on the mat. I've been careful to make sure that in bed, I've lain on my side a lot as well as on my back. I've kept changing position. The pain has completely disappeared until yesterday when I lay on the mat and it started up again.
I'm really surprised (and gutted that I don't think I'm going to be able to read while I'm lying down any more!). In retrospect, I think that attributing my flare-up in pain to my flare-up in fatigue was misleading; the flare-up in fatigue caused me to come up with the perspex/mat reading idea, which was why the pain and fatigue coincided in time.
I hope this story might help anyone with a similar pain story!
It was becoming quite a distressing symptom and I consulted my GP about it. Over the last few months I've worked my way through various ineffective painkillers with bad side effects trying to find one that worked and tried a TENS machine which put my intracostal muscles into spasm.
The solution - early days but I've been pain-free for a week, which is unusual - was suprising. A physiotherapist visited me at home and asked me about how I lived. I showed her the mat I lie on to read As I mentioned on the boards a while back, I place a perspex board on two supports like a bridge, put a book on top and lie underneath it so I can read while lying down. I have to lie down every hour for about 15 minutes so spend at least four hours a day lying flat.
To my surprise, she said that lying dead flat is bad for the back. She suggested some exercises to do (very few reps - bending back and forth while sitting down, twisting side to side, and shoulder shrugs) and to try lying with a small towell rolled up and underneath my spine. This didn't really help but this week I've had a bad cold and have had to take properly to my bed, with no reading on the mat. I've been careful to make sure that in bed, I've lain on my side a lot as well as on my back. I've kept changing position. The pain has completely disappeared until yesterday when I lay on the mat and it started up again.
I'm really surprised (and gutted that I don't think I'm going to be able to read while I'm lying down any more!). In retrospect, I think that attributing my flare-up in pain to my flare-up in fatigue was misleading; the flare-up in fatigue caused me to come up with the perspex/mat reading idea, which was why the pain and fatigue coincided in time.
I hope this story might help anyone with a similar pain story!
