Trapped a nerve in my lower back earlier in the week and been struggling since. Gradually has got a little better, but last couple of days have not really improved. Just a loss of movement (after all the muscles in my body seemed to tighten) and dull ache….I even struggle passing wind at the moment! I can still be walking and then it twangs and it feels like by legs are going to give way.

Any one else experienced trapped nerves in lower back and what they’ve done to help recover?

Is it a trapped nerve or just a spasm? Sounds like a spasm…

Spasms are when over-used and fatigued muscles effectively just give up and go into spasm to prevent you continuing to do what you’re doing, so you need to rest/relax the muscles and then gradually figure out why they were getting over-used in the first place.

If you’re a cyclist, first place to look might be over-tight quads/hip flexors which in turn pull the spine forward, so your low back muscles are put under more strain. Stretching quads and strengthening glutes and hamstrings can help redress that, worked for me.

Good luck, I’ve had a lot of spasms and they suck, can just come out of the blue!

How do you know that you “trapped a nerve”?

+1 for spasm, keep moving as much as possible.

If you haven’t had it before, then it’s most likely a spasm. I’ve had one many years ago and could hardly walk it was so painful – co-codamol and ibuprofen helped for a few days, but keep moving.

Paled into insignificance when I actually badly fractured my spine.

If it doesn’t go away after a few more days, speak to a medical professional, or even a physio.

It sounds more like a spasm rather than a nerve. They do feel different, speaking from experience with sciatic nerve pain and subsequent surgery to rectify.

The latest advice from the medical professionals is to keep mobile. It can be incredibly difficult when the spasm hits to do anything, but if you can, keep moving.

Often things will settle down within a week or so, sometimes pain killers and or muscle relaxers can help you get through the worst of it. The body’s reaction to pain is to freeze up to stop you doing any more, your own reaction is to tense up, moving very stiffly to try to work through the pain, which in turn makes the spasm worse. Round and round in circles.

Time to find out why your back is spasming so you can work on the root cause rather than fixate on the signals.

Cheers for replies. I try to keep moving and stand at my desk for meetings now. I’ve also tried a few stretches but my word it hurts!

If it doesn’t improve over weekend I’ll get myself booked in at local physio.

I have suffered spasms quite a bit over the years, range from pain to annoying to completely floored. All the above advice is good. I have never found pain killers to be effective so no longer bother with them.
In the past I used to see a physio but have subsequently learnt the exercises I need to do to release the spasms. Typically stretching and localised massage or ‘pressing’ on the area of tightness. There are lots of good videos on you tube for the more common areas. Psoas and piriformis in particular.
Keep moving, keep warm. It generally will go away in time but you can get rid of it quicker with the above.

Time to find out why your back is spasming so you can work on the root cause rather than fixate on the signals

This is good advice – any kind of repetitive action can set off a spasm, poor lifting technique or sitting for hours in the same position, like driving or sat on the sofa for hours cos lockdown….

Heatpacks are your friend also, distract from the pain and help you feel a bit looser…

Breathing exercises good also, lie on floor, knees up, relaxed etc. and try to breathe in through your nose and into your belly (exaggerate the rise and fall of your belly whilst keeping your chest still). Long breath in, longer breath out. When I’m breathing out I can almost visualise myself ‘sending’ the breath to my lower back, sounds ridiculous but you can feel the muscles sort of relax with it a wee bit.

This is just basic meditiation I think but my physio recommended it so it definitely isn’t ‘wooo’ 😉

Yes, get it checked.

I had something which started as a bit of a pain in March. Gradually got worse and I managed to get an MRI scan in October. My physio thought it was facet joint pain, and treated me accordingly, a Chiropractor was a bit more sceptical and refused to do anything without a proper diagnosis. The NHS physio (the scan report was sent to him) said it was just lack of core strength and prescribed 2 exercises that could have put me in a wheelchair.
Fortunately, a spinal surgeon looked at my scan the same day and told me to get to the hospital immediately, the surgical team would be waiting. I had a 4 hour operation next day and I’m cured. I was walking around pain-free 4 hours after surgery. The surgeon said they whipped me in because I was one good sneeze away from spending the rest of my life in a nappy.

Good old NHS!

Conclusion: What works for one person’s back pain can have disastrous effects for somebody else.

Oh p.s. have a think about your posture when you’re at your standing desk. Mine never really helped but it was because of the afore-mentioned tight quads and hip flexors. Standing up would exacerbate the poor posture and create the very tension in the low back that was causing the spasms!

Obviously in general/in the long term mixing up standing and sitting is a good thing, but right now it’s worth thinking about doing whatever relaxes your back more, and you might actually find that sitting relaxes it more than standing…

Edit:

Conclusion: What works for one person’s back pain can have disastrous effects for somebody else.

This is a very good point, hopefully nothing I am saying is too dangerous. Old school exercises like sit ups are pretty well disproven now, but even basic ‘low back’ strengthening and stretching can be a disaster, no point trying to strengthen muscles if they’ve been under constant strain all day every day, it’s all about relaxing them first.

Years of lower back pain myself. Would agree to get it checked out. Best thing that i have found to relieve the initial spasm is to spend a period of time (30-40mins) lying on my front, hips firmly on the floor and maintaining a slight curve in my lower back. I believe the idea is to allow the spine to return to alignment thus allowing the muscles to eventually relax. Once comfortable, you can try putting palms on floor and slowly increasing the arch. At its worst, I find myself having to repeat this cycle every 6 hours or so but has always seen me through when nothing else works.

Not sure if it’s the same, but when I got lower back I did these yoga moves:
Stretch out as long as possible on front lying down.
Half super man (opposite arm/leg lift off floor) then swap. Or superman if you can.
Cobra
Dog
Cat
Look these up on you tube if you want to try.
Worked almost instantly for me, and now this is my gym warm up.

Note, when my back was bad I was able to do the above without a lot of pain, so use common sense- if it hurts more, don’t do it.

Suffered lower back pain myself for absolute years. It flares up seriously every so often in the form of acute spasms and the like. I moved some slabs a few months ago and bam, I was down.

I’ve seen physios and chiros with mixed success. Physios did point out tight hamstrings and poor glutes, piriformis etc.

For the last few months I’ve been doing the SMM workout plan by Tom Morrison – and it’s massively improved things. More than anything it’s taught me a lot about where my weaknesses and imbalances are. For the price of a single physio/chiro session it’s worth a go.

https://tommorrison.uk/products/the-simplistic-mobility-method

Suffered lower back pain myself for absolute years. It flares up seriously every so often in the form of acute spasms and the like. Physios did point out tight hamstrings and poor glutes, piriformis etc.

That describes the last 30 years of my life after damaging my hip/lower back when I was 21.

I’d endorse all the comments about seeing an expert and getting to the root cause. A road bike fit helped me as well, if you are into road riding.

My back had been pretty good for a couple of years, as I’d been pretty good with doing the stretches. A couple of days ago suddenly it’s gone into spasm around my tail bone, kind of through my glutes, which is a new one. Not as excruciating or restrictive as when the lower back goes, but really weird.

I strongly suspect that 10 months sitting on a old cheapish IKEA “office chair” has probably contributed.

I even struggle passing wind at the moment!

As in bowls, or burping? If it just hurts burping that sounds like muscle spasms

I’m currently waiting for quick turn around MRI. I had back pain like nothing else 7 weeks ago from no where. Instantly couldn’t walk, nearly passed out, felt sick, loss of sensation in my foot, muscle spasms. Lots of anti inflammatories/pain killers

3 weeks later I though I was back to normal. Started a gentle run, 1/2 mile in couldn’t move, wife had to pick me up. Actually not as painful as first time around, however this time loss of sensation in foot, perineum, loss of erectile function and didn’t empty bowls for 3 days.

Mrs FD is an orthopaedic surgeon and was concerned about my pain. However because I didn’t describe the bowl movements and erectile function (which I assumed were just consequences of severe pain) she wasn’t concerned. Medics are notorious for being under concerned with family members unless you are at deaths door.

Currently I just have a dull ‘light’ pain as though someone is constantly pushing their fist into my lower back.

When Mrs FD and I talked in more details about my symptoms last Sunday, she told me to get straight on to the GP on Monday, and without hesitation he was referring for an urgent scan which I assume will be this week coming.

If yours is not that severe, definitely see a physio, pain killers to reduce and muscle spasms and try these exercises (within bounds of what’s comfortable)

https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/exercise/exercises-for-sciatica/

I suspect my back has been caused by, poor posture, poor work office set up as just not used to office working. Changed my job in July, from years of quite active jobs (not sitting for periods at a desk).

I’ll try some yoga and stretches, as cannot think about getting on a bike at the moment. Hot water bottles on the back have felt really nice and seemed to have eased the pain a little.

Its the first time I have felt completely useless, as even minor jobs at the moment are really difficult.

Crikey Funkydunc. That sounds like severe stenosis. I had a slightly less serious set of symptoms and they whipped me straight in to chisel bits out of my L5 vertebra and trim the disc. Check out Cauda Equina syndrome. You don’t want that. I was back on my bike less than 2 weeks after my op.

For the last few months I’ve been doing the SMM workout plan by Tom Morrison – and it’s massively improved things. More than anything it’s taught me a lot about where my weaknesses and imbalances are. For the price of a single physio/chiro session it’s worth a go.

https://tommorrison.uk/products/the-simplistic-mobility-method

Took a punt on this and did the assessment and first session earlier, couple of the exercises I couldn’t even attempt, body just can’t move that way! Look forwarded to seeing some progress over the coming weeks and months

I’d look locally for someone to offer a few sessions of Kinetic Chain Release. I had similar symptoms and found this really helped (cured,even). Have recommended ever since.