Why Does My Back Hurt When I Bend Down?

By the time you’re 40 year old you have at least one episode of back pain and unfortunately once you’ve  one episode there is a high likelihood the back pain will return. 
 
This is why one of the most common questions I get is why does my back hurt when I bend down?

Sammy is a 42 year old mom of 3 who started to have back pain at the end of her day. She didn’t think much about the back pain when it started, about a year ago, it was just a mild ache at the end of the day.  She just stretched a little bit and by the next morning everything was fine. After a few weeks she started taking ibuprofen at the end of the day to get rid of the pain because it started to interrupt her sleep. 

Slowly over time she wasn’t able to find a comfortable sleeping position; she tried to use a pillow to adjust herself at night with minimal relief. As she thought about all the times her back hurt she remembered it she stopped playing on the floor with her kids because her back hurt too much. Her back pain was like a new friend that just hung around all the time and was part of every aspect of her life. 

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Her back pain was there every time she did laundry, the dishes, brushed her teeth and every time she bent over to pick up her youngest child.  
The lack of sleep and constant discomfort wore down Sammy's emotions..she was snapping at her kids, she wasn’t able to keep up with all the housework and the school work that her family needed. 
When we met Sammy felt like a horrible mom. She wasn’t able to play with her kids. She was losing her temper at simple things. When she went to the doctor she was told that back pain happens and she’ll be fine eventually,  just rest. (How does a mom of 3 rest???) He gave her a  handout with some back stretches that didn’t really help; she wasn’t even sure she was doing them right. 

At her breaking point Sammy took a chance after seeing one of my ads. She really didn’t believe that anything would help her back pain but finally after several emails going back-and-forth she agreed to an evaluation. 

At the evaluation I asked her what the number one thing she wanted to see a change in. She said “I want to be able to sleep.” So that was what we concentrated on first.  After completing the physical exam and seeing how she moved, we came up with a detailed plan. I explained why her back was hurting every time she bent down. The first goal was to get her back to sleeping 8 hours. As we met each of her goals we moved to the next goal. 

She is now able to get up and down from the floor with her kids. She is now able to walk all the way through the grocery store without having to wonder how she was going to push the cart and get all the groceries in there without hurting her back. She's able to sit in her car and drive. Basically she is back to full force mommy of 3 mode with no back pain. She does not have to take ibuprofen or Tylenol at the end of her day; she doesn’t feel like she has to stack random pillows up to be able to get into just the right sleeping position. She is 100% back to her favorite activities without thinking about her back every second of the day.

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