Joining ranks of back pain sufferers teaches patience, empathy

You’ve heard about love-hate relationships, but probably not with inanimate objects.

Since joining the in-crowd of 65 million Americans with back pain, I have learned to love my heating pad and hate my pillow.

Brothers and sisters in lower back pain hell, I have joined your ranks. We could march together, but it would probably hurt, so let’s not.

I sprained a muscle recently when I was lifting my wheelchair-bound mother. I heard a crack and fell to my knees with an unladylike yell. (At least I didn’t curse like a sailor in front of Mom.)

It was my fault, not hers. There are ways to lift people without hurting your back, and I didn’t do what I should have done.

I’ve wrenched my back a time or two before (once while making a bed, which seemed ridiculous, but a friend hurt hers by putting down the dog’s water dish).

But I was younger then. This time, instead of improving after a few days, it became worse. So I went to my doctor, where I got empathy, a prescription for a mild muscle relaxer and an anti-inflammatory and orders to have physical therapy three times a week for four weeks.

At physical therapy, I learned to love a heating pad, any heating pad. I’m a loose woman when it comes to heating pads.

When writing at home and the back pain starts, help arrives in the form of 10 minutes in the recliner where my heating pad has taken roost.

Now the down side is that my cat has also learned a heating pad is God’s gift. Often, we vie for it. As I write this, it’s turned off, but he’s still attached to it like a kid’s tongue on a frozen pipe. I can’t bear to separate the two, though my back is crying out for that pad.

Now the hate part.

I’m a side sleeper, and the therapist recommended sleeping with a pillow between my legs. It’s torture. It’s hot. I like to sleep with the covers up around my neck. This dates back to my childhood when I overheard my Dad telling about a friend who slept bare-chested and was stung by a scorpion. Childhood fears are not always outgrown. Believe me.

Because I turn back and forth, the pillow moves all over the bed with me. The bed sheets twist and tangle, and I awake like a trussed squab, either too hot or too cold. It annoys the cat no end.

The first sign of progress? I stopped yelping when rolling out of bed, and rolling is the right word. I couldn’t sit up.

Fortunately, I didn’t miss work, but many do. Back pain is the leading cause of missed days at work.

My physical therapy team is working hard, and I am faithful — to my exercises, if not my heating pad.

I have friends and family with chronic back pain, and I have a whole new respect for them because most don’t whine about it.

I’m among the fortunate, a sprain rather than a bulging disk or something more serious.

When I ask people about back pain, few say they’ve never had a problem. Very few.

The literature says most back injuries heal on their own over time and, for a standard case, doctors aren’t supposed to order an MRI or an X-ray until the pain has lasted for a month or six weeks. An oft-quoted study said Americans spend $86 billion a year trying to make the pain go away, with little evidence that it does.

I am improving, so am luckier than many. But for those who live with chronic back pain, my heart goes out to you. I feel your pain, even if only temporarily.

Jane Ann Morrison’s column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0275. She also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/morrison.