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QUESTION:
Last October, I was rear-ended in rush-hour traffic. I was crawling
with the stop-and-go traffic, the driver behind me wasn't crawling (!)
and hit me at probably about 15 mph -- hard enough to push me over a
full car length and into the car in front of me.
Ever since, I've had moderate pain in my lower back. Specifically:
==> A chronic aching/burning sensation in back, just below my belt line
(lumbar-sacral and/or sacroiliac regions?).
==> Tender spots on my spine (around L1 and L5) -- direct pressure on
these spots causes sharp pain.
==> Tender spots on my back, near the tips of the 11th and 12th ribs
(the "floating" ribs that aren't connected to the ribcage).
==> A tender region that starts on my right side and runs around to
the front along the bottom of the ribcage.
ANSWER:
I think you should have your back and neck thoroughly checked out by a
doctor, because there might be a permenant injury.
The same thing happened to me 20 months ago and
I'm still dealing with it. I, however had cervical injuries too, but those
have been corrected and I have minimal problems with that today. The lower
back problems are what seems to be sticking around.
I wasn't able to get an MRI until last month, where they found DDD in two
disks and one bulge in my lower most disk. I've been through PT 2 times with
no improvement. I have been seeing a chiropractor for about a year, who does
give me some temporary relief for the lower back flare-ups with tractioning,
but I know what you're talking about with the constant lower back pain.
I'm seeing an orthopedic surgeon in a few weeks and hopefully he will be
going with epidural injections into the disk to help shrink it back.
You seem to be right on track with everything I have gone through and
everything I have been told and have tried. I think the MRI results may shed
some light into what's going on inside you.
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