I have had a little bit of a bad back history over the last 10 years, but yesterday I graduated into a new realm.
- Getting up from a prone position was agony.
- Rotating my prone postion was agony.
- Sitting was agony.
- I could only stand for 10 minutes before I would have to lie down again.

All I could do was lie on my sides, and find a sweet spot where the pain was tolerable. A couple hours after waking up it wasn't going away so I had to do the 911 thing. I called my mum first, she came over first so that she could follow ambulance when it came. I couldn't just be driven to the hospital, sitting in the car would have been impossible.

Ambulance took about half an hour to arrive. They knew I hadn't been shot or anything so I was a lower priority. At hospital I continued to lay on the stretcher (on my side) in the hallway for about half an hour.

Then I was transferred to a bed in another hallway where I waited for about 3 or 4 hours, I can't quite remember. During this time I got up twice, the body needed a break from lying down in one position so long. It was a relief at first to stand for a bit, but eventually I would start looking at the bed and knowing I would have to lie down again and dreading the transition from upright to prone.

Finally into a room where we waited just 45 mins for the doctor. This guy I didn't like (all the previous EMS/nurses who had talked to me I liked). He touched me twice, and when he talked to me he mostly looked at a spot two feet above my head. He ordered x-rays and was gone. I was pretty bummed.

Speaking of 'bummed', half an hour later a nurse came in with two monster needles. One was for anti-inflammatory, the other for pain. She said she was going to inject them into my butt muscle, and it might feel like someone had punched me there. It wasn't the most pleasurable feeling, but compared to my back it was laughable.

Then the xrays, and I had to lie in two agony positions, keeeee-RYST that sucked. It's too bad they didn't wait 5 minutes because that pain medicine started kicking in and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah did that ever feel good.

Then a different doc came and her I liked, she asked me many more questions and she did an examination. She also said my xray was fine. Her prognosis was... a pulled/spasming muscle? Hmmmm, not too sure about that, we'll see. My mum has thin/degenerated discs. As we talked while we were waiting, it sure sounded like I had slipped a disc or something.

So I walked out of there (yep walked, that shot for pain was a miracle) with two prescriptions, one anti-inflammatory (naproxen 500 I think), one for pain (codeine 3 I think).

Today I felt relatively ok, whew.

Morale of the story? Please take care of your back. Look up some basic exercises on the net and do them. Trust me! Me I have to think of a career change. The desk job is a slow back killer.

I had a bad back forever. True that about desk jobs helping a back get worse. Stretching and excercise is key. My back is pretty much all good to go now too. I can'y just stand in one spot and I can't stay leaned over anything but I can do all of the sports and heavy lifting and all of that for now. I'll tell my bad back story later. Get better and when you do start stretching like crazy as you can.