Well, a bit cheesed off. After planning a nice days ride at glentress/inners I started off on the freeride section of glentress and within 10 mins I’d pulled my back again and spent the next 4 hours sat in the car waiting for everyone else to return instead.

Well, im sick of this – completely debilitating and excruciatingly painful (cocodamol don’t even begin to touch it) – I’m out of action again. Properly gutted. Well every time it’s failed in the past I’ve been told it was my back and “it’s just mechanical back pain, everyone gets it at some point – man up” – two GP’s and a physio. So I’ve done a lot of hunting around the internets and found it’s almost definitely a hip flexor failure, not my back (strictly) at all. It manifests itself as pain in my lower back but has all the symptoms and causes of hip flexor failure and none of lower back injury (no pain down legs, no pain on pressing vertebrae etc). And it coincides with my hip flexors feeling tight in the last week or so and spending a lot of time sat down.

So instead of visiting the GP I’m just going to sign in to the local NHS physio (self referral) and see what they say, I can’t go on having these failures every few months. Does anyone have any experience with these injuries? What caused it this time was trying to man-handle my bike mid-air (trying to pull it forward under me as if to manual out of a landing)

Had similar symptoms, after much questioning and many differing medical/physio opinions, I was sent for a MRI, where a herniated disc was found to be causing the problem. Hope whatever you have is sorted quickly, I sympathise with your frustration.

See I was concerned about the possibility of a herniated disc but two GPs have emphatically ruled disc issues out (though I do have disc issues in the family history) and the last one asked in a patronising tone “would you like me to send you for a scan just to prove to you that there’s nothing wrong with you?” which was a little annoying but for some stupid reason I said “no” and walked away. I don’t like moaning and I rarely bother about pain, I have a fairly high pain threshold, but when this fails it’s like someone’s twisting a knife into my back/hip area and I can’t lift my right leg or put weight on it without it taking my breath away with pain.

Similar symptoms again, initially I was told it was a tear in the cartilage around the hip joint, then a hip bursa, after about 18 months of this and failing physio (including acupuncture) I had a MRI where they injected dye into the hip joint. That proved inconclusive and the symptoms persisted, then went for another MRI which showed the disc problem up. No history of it in the family, although 6 months after my diagnosis, my brother had the same condition diagnosed. In total I spent 3 years between the onset of symptoms and finally having an op to sort it out, the final 4 months before the op I was stuck lying on the floor stuffing myself stupid with increasingly stronger drugs which really did not have that much of an effect. Post-op was brilliant, up and around the following day and gentle riding after a couple of weeks. Hope you don’t have the same thing, persist with the medics and push them into investigating all avenues to ensure a diagnosis, good luck.

That sounds quite unpleasant, good to hear you’ve recovered well. Cheers for the encouragement!

I can certainly sympathise with long term pain and the frustration of not finding the true cause.

Get an MRI, X-ray, blood tests and establish the facts. Then treat accordingly.

I’ve had similar symptoms plus SIJ pain. The hip flexor/ psoas tightness & pain was caused by them over compensating for buggered hip. All caused by a labral tear in the hip cartilage, plus ankylosing spondylitis.

Having a hip arthroscopy Dec 14th (was originally Nov 30th but I wanted more time for pre-hab)

Get that MRI sorted and good luck!

i am only 25 but have had serious back/hip pain for years since i was involved in a high speed car crash. i do a job which involves everyday lifting of heavy loads as well.

3 years ago i was working on site and had massive pains in my hips/ tight back which stopped me walking correctly all i could do was limp. I went doctors and he said there was nothing wrong. I could not stand the pain or have the time off work so i went to A and E. The doctor asked me what was up etc and said would i like some pain killers to allow me to work. He prescribed me Tramadol and Diclofenac. The tramadol stops the brain receiving the signals from the nerve where the pain is and they allowed me to carry on working and play badminton etc without any problems at all. Since then within the last 2 years i have started running, badminton, circuit training and more cycling i dont sit down hardly at all now and my pains have gone in my hips completely with only a tight back now and again from lifting.

My suggestion is to try reducing the amount of sitting down and plenty of hip flexor stretches. If you can get some tramadol from the doc i highly recommend it as a very short term thing to help you out but dont get reliant on it. Also it affects people in different ways but you wont know without trying.

hope this is of some help.

Personally I’m not a fan of pain killers. Pain is your body telling you that something is wrong. Masking pain will not take the underlying problem away.

If you were to have a issue with the structure of the hip, masking the pain could hide arthritis which could result in hip replacement further down the road.

Take it from me don’t mess around with people guessing. Get a referral to an orthopaedic consultant and have an MRI.

Thats why i said dont use it as a long term thing i used them as and when i could not walk correctly. now i have started exercising regularly with varied sports which including stretching the problem has gone :D.

Going to the physio is a good idea but I do love the concept that two GPs and a physio are wrong but a few mins on the net leads you to the correct diagnosis.

You may be right of course but often back pain has no cause

In my experience, 4 GPs, 3 chiropractors, 2 osteopaths , 3 physios were all wrong because they were all taking educated guesses. 3.5 years later one rheumatologist and one orthpaedic surgeon were right, because they had an MRI scanner to establish the facts.

GPs jack of all master of none, all too willing to just write a prescription and leave it at that. Slaves to the pharmaceutical industry.

There is a hip flexor that attaches to you lumbar spine (psoas major). That could be tha bad boy that’s giving you some stick. Self-referral physio takes a while to come through too. If you want the names of some top quality physios in your neck of the woods my email is in my profile.

Going to the physio is a good idea but I do love the concept that two GPs and a physio are wrong but a few mins on the net leads you to the correct diagnosis.

You may be right of course but often back pain has no cause

While I’d like to agree with your trust in GP’s my experience with them tends to teach me you’re wrong. They seem to assume it’s the easiest/most common solution and are often wrong. Over the years I’ve seen 3 people with what appeared to be “nothing serious”, get sent to physios and get “treated” who eventually went to specialists who told them they should never have been sent to physios and have done more harm than good and now need fairly major ops, so I always question everything. Especially when I jump, feel something pull and twist and then leave me with weakened limbs and unable to move properly, only to be told there’s nothing wrong with me by a doc who spends 5 mins prodding me and asks a few basic questions. Call me mad if you like, but I do feel a re-occurring (over years), debilitating, excruciatingly painful back injury is not just something that’ll go away. And when the physio gives me exercises that double the injury rate, yes I question it!

my key issue here is knowing it’s nothing that’ll get worse from just M-ing the F up and carrying on with painkillers. While the doc is happy telling me it’s not, as I’ve said I’ve seen a few people in he last half decade taken down by that sort of (non)diagnosis.

Find a decent sports physio – worth paying for asession or two rather than waiting for NHS referrals. They will identify the source of the problem (mine was a back problem, brought on by problems with flexors caused by pronation of my feet if that’s the term) and give an exercise plan etc to help.

CK – In my opinion the only thing you’d be going to physio for would be to get a referral to a suitable consultant. There a couple of things you say in your posts that would mean I wouldn’t touch you and would get you referred to whoever straight away.

To be honest I’d happily be referred and that was part of my reasoning for considering going back to the physio (as the doc seems less willing to pass the buck, or even give me decent pain killers – im sure she thinks I’m just a wimp 🙂 ). Though I am ultimately concerned about the future of it (having a family member just undergo an op to sort a similar problem and leave permanently in a wheelchair) I need to find the real cause and work towards repair. I think the walk-in NHS physio here is pretty much instantaneous (amazingly!) so I’ll speak to them and see if they’ll refer me upward to a specialist who will at least use something more advanced than fingers to take a peek, unlike the doc.

I like your attitude coffeeking. Good luck getting what’s right for you!

Well I finally gave up being unable to move from/in bed and decided a trip to the hosp was needed, so I picked a quiet time and visited A&E (feeling bad as it wasn’t exactly an emergency but I know I’ll get nowhere with my doc).

After a lot of faffing and a fair wait I was given a couple of painkilling/anti inflam jabs and subjected to further poking and prodding. A&E doc tells me that unless I have numbness he’s not going to do anything about it and, while he helped me out with a bunch of exercises and was very nice about it, I left feeling like I’d got nowhere again.

While laying here a minute ago I realised that I HAVE had numbness issues since my initial injury, but never attributed it to anything unpleasant – I’ve had numb nuts and numb feet from cycling bent over for more than a few minutes. I always assumed it was just saddle pressure, but maybe it’s linked? Who knows?

Apparently my doc will be informed of the visit, maybe it’ll be worth me mentioning it in a week or so, but that means I’ve got to book another appt with them.

You have my sympathy. Every 12-18 months my back has a major meltdown and painkillers don’t begin to touch it. I’m sure mine is just having a ‘bad back’ – genetics, weak core etc. The last time it happened I was pushing off in the biggest gear on my bike, out of the saddle. Time before that, getting out of a car in mallorca. Then picking up a backpack in NZ. It doesn’t help that I’m fairly tall and everything- washing up, kitchen surfaces, shaving basins etc – involves a slight stoop.
Anyway, I have no words of advice to offer. It’s just so deeply demoralising isn’t it?
*makes mental note: do physio exercises as instructed!”

It doesn’t help that I’m fairly tall and everything- washing up, kitchen surfaces, shaving basins etc – involves a slight stoop.

Isn’t it such a pain in the arse! Horrible having to bend over to do anything! Demoralising is a good word, yes – does leave you rather unpredictable doesnt it. Definitely keep up the exercises!

Quick update…

After my initial massive pain, a week of working from my bed and sleeping with a hot electric blanket and pain killers I returned to normal almost overnight, bar the odd twinge. So about 2 weeks in I went to see a sports physio available through my work (fortunately found thanks to a colleage) and we had a good chat. He’s given me a few core strengthening exercises and hip flexor and hamstring stretches. I have to do them every day and to be honest they’re mildly painful and keep giving me re-occurring twinges, but I’m keeping at it.

His initial assessment was that after my injury I’m over-curving my lower spine. I’m not convinced, still!, though. I don’t want to question his knowledge but I find curving it reduces pain. He kept telling me I need to learn to flatten my lower back and asked me to practice pelvic thrusts to train my core to hold my hips rotated backward to flatten my lumbar region.

That said, I had a long hard think about how I ride my bike and went out for a test ride. I noticed that when riding, what triggers the failure is me loading my lower back when doing something like the initial stages of a bunnyhop, the front wheel lift bit. I took a long look at my hip/back position during this phase and realised that if I rotate my hips so that my hamstrings are pulling painfully (i.e. rotated forwards at the top) it didn’t pull my back at all. If I relaxed in my normal position I naturally avoid pulling my hamstrings and straighten my lumbar region by allowing my hips to rotate backward at the top. This instantly causes pain when lifting the front wheel.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this info but I’m doing a lot of hamstring stretches in a hope to counter it. I know that back in my SPD using XC days I could put as much effort into the pedalling stroke on the upward pull as into the downward and I wonder if this combined with sitting at a desk afterward has really shortened my hamstrings.

I done my L2 L3 L5 when my bike went North and my Arse went South into the ground.
I had terrible constant and no let off of Sciatica down my right leg
The NHS had me scanned but was unsure how they was to tackle the problem.

I went Private and through various exercises the pain went after a couple of months.
Now 1 year down the line the pain not has bad but the pain as started again.
I self referred myself to the NHS and now doing various exercises but this is now Three months
down the line and still same pain.
So will call private chap once again.

coffeeking

I’ve suffered from back trouble for what seems an eternity – culminating in a dose of sciatica last easter. spent 8 weeks on my back after 1st GP prescribed painkillers and told me to keep moving! – after going private (thanks Mum and Dad) scanned and X rayed that showed flaring of the lower vertebra and deformation trapping the nerve. After this it was a case of finding a good sports physio, plenty of stretches including specific Yoga and Pilates ‘stretches’ which are bloody marvelous. My point would be that GPs are bloody hard work as stated in other posts as they are protecting budgets – get straight to a good sports physio -I pay approx £30 a session as and when – worth its weight in gold
hope you get sorted!

talltom – actually that GP gave you the best advice. Its nothing to do with budgets, its to do with evidence based practice

Its nothing to do with budgets

not needed any NHS physio recently then?

I appreciate that TJ, my point (although badly put) was that in my instance, to keep moving was having a detrimental effect – if the flared discs etc had been picked up earlier then the treatment/management would have been different. Rest has been the most effective ‘medicine’ along with the stretching.

If your psoas muscle is over contracted it can pull your lumbar spine into lordosis, which would cause most health practitioners to look at the back, rather than the cause of the problem. All the back straightening and strengthening in the world is not going to get to the bottom of it as the erector spinae muscles are not what is the cause of the tension.

If you want some different ideas, send me an email and I’ll give you some suggestions of some things to try. I had chronic back pain for over 10 years. Spend a small fortune on various treatments and have learned over years, what works and what doesn’t. Now I rarely have any problems as long as I keep on top of it.

Okay … only read the first four threads above … hope this simple solution might work for you so give it a try before going under the knife.

I was told my spine alignment could be out due to injury so my body subconsciously adjust to compensate for it making things worst.

Note: I am not trying to spam you guys nor do I work for the company but just thought this might solve your problem if your injury is similar to mine. This is based on my own personal experience so get your doctor/expert advice first.

I injured myself doing some heavy bench press many years ago (macho macho man …) and for the past few months the pain became so unbearable I could not even sleep. Even when walking I could feel my back hurting after an hour or so and was a bit desperate in trying to find ways to sort it out. By chance I talked about it to my parents and my sister overhead my problem so she advised me to try something to straighten and to adjust my spine as it could be out of shape due to injury.

She advised me to get a custom insole for my shoes i.e. not those gel type but rather a piece of solid plastic shape insole that need to be custom made by those spine experts (not sure what you call those people who are expert in spine adjustment using insole, there is a name for them …). I was then told it would cost at least £200 to £500 depending on the experts. So I thought shitttteee … there goes my hard earn money and went around all shoe shops finding a cheaper one only to find most sell gel type … useless. Until one day when I thought I better replace all my shoes to see if they could ease my back pain and while searching for new shoes I stumbled upon … wait a minute … Superfeet insole (not some gel type shite) at outdoor shop. Well they were £35 so I thought I had nothing to loose and decided to give them a try.

Guess what … my lower back hurts for the first few days but after a few days wearing the insole my lower back pain has almost gone completely. I can say now I am 99% pain free now while walking but sitting down for long period still hurts (60% better) but not as bad as before.

I have 3 pairs now 2 green and 1 blue with 2 of them bought at half price at Blacks/Millets.

Check out this website.

Superfeet

If you are wearing normal shoes go for the blue one. Those insoles look simple but they work very well for me.

🙂

p/s: yes, I tried physio … with all those muscle stretching etc … not work.

When I get 5 will post

I agree with kudos, had back problems, eventually microdisectomy. Did core exercises, eventually found someone who suggested psoas muscle and released it….bliss! So I do core but keep a careful eye! on my psoas.

Hi all – thanks for the responses – bit busy at work today so will reply this evening when I get chance to look at them properly and consider.

Have to agree with what others have said, I’m afraid I also had GPs telling me to take pain killers and man-up – after 3-4 years of pain in my lower back (tightness around the ‘tail bone’ area which spread up my back/neck to around my jaw when really bad) I was recommended to see an osteo (by this forum) who was also a keen cyclist.

5-6 deep massage/manipulation sessions improved the pain massively and I could move much more easily. She also thinks it is to do with hip flexors and prescribed a number of exercises which have helped.

The other thing I have been looking into recently is my cleat / foot position. Looking at photos of me riding a BM race I noticed my knees are massively pointing in, over the top tube, and after 2.5hrs of racing the small muscles on the inside of my knee/thigh cramp up badly. Speaking to a chap in the bike shop my knees point inwards quite a lot and my feet pronate. When I ride flats my feet point quite outwards on the pedal (almost 45). When clipped in I can’t rotate the foot out this much so the knees point in, meaning I have a poor pedal action and stress the inside of my knees, and I reckon potentially the cause for my tight hip flexors/back issues.

To try to straighten my knees up in my pedal stroke they recommended trying specialised footbeds which are similar to the superfeet above, except designed for cycling and have a couple of +1.5mm wedges which go under the toes – this tilts your foot slightly (stand in front of a mirror and rotate your foot outwards onto the edge – your knees will rotate outwards too).

I am going to give this a go for a few longer rides to judge if there is an improvement. After this it maybe I need to shim my cleats out a little as well.

I would ask on here for recommendations of cycle specific osteo / physio or a decent shop who bike fit in your area – it is worth the few £ you will spend to be pain free.

Good luck

Get properly assesed coffeeking, and go to a Biomechanical podiatrist for assesment for insole therapy if its needed. BUT, DO NOT TAKE THE GP’S WORD ON NOT HAVING DISC PROBLEMS… i had that for 2 years, constant denial of any spinal problems from my GP, and Physio refused to scan. Eventually after months of arguement a scan showed chronic serious spinal injury……………….