3rd Trimester
MandyR88
member
pre-existing back injury
MandyR88
member
when i was young i fell downstairs and landed on my butt, ever since then ive had speratic pain in my lower back, feels almost as if its my tailbone, ever since i can remember my dad has just been telling me i have a pinched nerve in my lower back..i never saw a doctor for my back but now that im pregnant ive been having horrible lower back pain, so bad sometimes i cant even stand up straight or even walk. if i do any bending over at all i get a feeling of my back giving out and it takes hours of laying down for it to remotely feel ok to get up again. needless to say working is becoming very difficult but i have to go. im starting to get worried about labor and delivery, if my lower back is going to be able to handle it. do you think this will effect the process of giving birth? anyone with a similar situation?
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Re: pre-existing back injury
see. your. dr.
Do you really need to ask people what they think on this? if it's to the point of you not being able to function every day, go see someone for it.
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i have. i have seen my doctor and asked him about it. all he says is its normal to have lower back pain this late in pregnancy. i wouldnt just post something like this BEFORE asking my doctor. i was wondering if maybe anyone else was feeling the same way and THEIR doctor maybe said something different. so thanks..
I have a similar injury and concerns so I'll be interested to see what responses you get. My injury is the main reason I'm keeping an open mind about pain meds during delivery. While I would like to avoid an epi, I'm not sure how much my back and tailbone problems will add to labor pains.
Edit: This has also been discussed with my doctor and all she said was she agreed with my thoughts on pain management. Since it is an old, healed injury(in my case) there isn't a way of knowing how bad it will be until I'm in labor. I have been doing some of my old PT in preparation, hoping the stretching and exercises will help.
I have always had a bad back too. I saw many doctors, PTs and chiros when I was younger. I was told that I had a fractured spine....but no one could find it on the xrays so they assumed it happen way before I finally started seeing docs and just still had all the symptoms but the actual fracture had healed. My last round of PT was the most effective, it was concentrated on deep tissue work and stretching and strengthing of all the muscles that connect to the lower back.....it was pretty intense and painful but I have been much better since. (although I no longer play sports or do much of anything really intense because if it.)
Anyway, it was painful.....but labor and delivery of my DS1 didn't make it any worse and I didn't really feel much in my back during or after.
This time I am having pretty bad sciatica pain. My OB said that she can prescribe me to PT if I want. So far I have just been doing the stretches that I learned in PT before to keep the pain down.
Have you talked to your OB about it Maybe you can get into some PT now to learn stretches and strengthing to use now and after your baby comes?
i have a history of chronic lower back pain that has gotten worse during pregnancy...i was on daily medication and occasional narcotics pre-pregnancy for the pain...
if you are in that much pain and unable to function for hours at a time, you need to see a doctor...they may be able to send you to physical theraphy, chiropractic, massage or accupunture to try to relieve the pain...doing nothing won't help...i find that when i stay moderately active (prenatal yoga and walking) that it helps the back pain a lot...that and my heating pad when it gets really bad at the end of the day...
while it may be too late (for now) to get a definitive answer since you cannot get x-rays/MRI, you should definitely be evaluated to at least determine what pain control methods you can use...HTH:)
anyway you can see an orthopaedist? sounds like it's possible you had a herniated disk or some other vertebrae issue.
I'm in a similar situation except I have an irregular pelvis and they're only answer really is that they don't know.
However, if you have an epidural (that works perfectly) it should eliminate this pain because it numbs from the waist down.
Have you explained the entire situation to your doctor? Most docs will just write off back pain as a normal pregnancy thing. But, you have a pre-existing injury which is making things worse. If you feel his answer isn't really addressing your concerns, I'd try talking to another doctor in the practice.
I have a bad back too (apparently I don't have the proper curves which means I can't absorb shock from normal activities like walking, sitting, etc & it causes a lot of pain). I've talked to my doc but there's nothing he could suggest for me outside of taking Tylenol & using heat pads (which don't do anything for me). BUT, my pain isn't quite like yours so I definitely suggest trying to talk to your doc again or talking to a diff doc
At my Bradley class we had a D.O. come talk to us about things like this. A D.O. is a doctor of osteopathy--he's just like a doctor but also more concerned about balancing your body and helping it get back to doing what it is supposed to do naturally, not just throwing some pills at it. I knew of a lady who wasn't able to give birth vaginally b/c her tailbone had been broken inward and was basically blocking her birth canal--I'm sure your dr. would have noticed something that extreme but it's definitely and important place for the baby to pass by.
That said, I had an injury to my sacrum a few years ago (the bone the tailbone is attached to) and it caused some pain/stiffness everyday. I was really worried about pregnancy's strain on it but I did tons of the pelvic tilts, tailor sitting, and squats that the Bradley method recommends and my back has never felt better. I don't know if those could help you or if your dr. would recommend that kind of exercise, but it helped me a ton.
Good luck with your pain management--it's hard enough to be pregnant without all the extras.