I injured my back reaching for my keys...

So many times, I will ask patients, "How did you hurt your back?" They will say, "Well, I was cleaning the house, and then my back just gave out." And then I ask, "How often do you clean your house that way?" They respond, "Once every two weeks for the past five years." Then I ask the central question "So, if you cleaned your house 200 times over 5 years and your back never went out, why did it go out this time?"

This is the key to the cause of your back giving out. Your activity was essentially the same as usual. So what was the additional factor? A very important and often overlooked factor is psychosocial stress. For example, let's say that you are divorced and have a young son. This very same week of your injury, your son went on his very first weekend of camping with his irresponsible father. A stress like this can cause a significant increase in the tension of certain muscle groups. If these same muscle groups are engaged in cleaning the house, it may be too much for them. And whammo! an attack of acute low back pain.

It is physical activity coupled with emotional stress that so often results in crippling episodes of acute low back pain. Do not be a helpless victim to low back pain! Contemplate your situation and if there is some stress that you can locate, try to resolve it and don't fight your emotional reaction to the stress. Things upset us, make us angry...sometimes even events that make us happy can be the origin of our pain. As a side note, I remember a patient that I worked with who was overcome with low back pain on the way to a second interview for her dream job. She had to hobble home and cancel the interview! Luckily, they were nice enough to give her more time, and by realizing the connection she was able to make it to the interview and did get the job in the end.

So, if you cannot locate a contributing stress and your pain does not resolve (or if you can locate the stress and your pain still does not resolve), seek out a practitioner who can help you locate these issues and "unstick" your system so that your pain resolves.