Jesus Philip!
It's hell! I have a disc herniation at l5. I use to have these crisis and it was terrible.
Sometimes I had to keep walking in the living room during the crisis because there's no relief being sat, lay down...
I hope you get better soon.
Please do physiotherapy and always take a brake from time to time when you're at the computer.
Take care and try to stay calm.

Ouch!

I DO suffer from a bad back, but haven't had a problem since May.

I once had a nurse tell me bad backs hurt more than childbirth. Don't know about that, but do know they hurt like hell.

Take care Philip.

Oh it's piriformis.

Those cats of yours better put on their nurses uniforms and make u comfy!

Philip,
You might want to consider making yourself a stand-up desk/workstation. If so, put a small (4-6 inch high) box under it and rest one foot on it, changing feet every so often. That gives your back a rest. Stretching and walking around for at least five minutes per hour helps...but I get so engrossed in projects I never remember to do that.

This is all standard advice left over from my rehab days. Oddly, we used to rehab people with bad backs all the time as office workers. As you've no doubt noticed, prolonged sitting isn't good for backs. Even at the time I felt bogus offering the "five minutes an hour" advice because I knew few employers would allow that and this was pre-disability act days so there was no legal ability to push for accommodations. Still, most of these people were doing heavy lifting--that's how they hurt themselves, usually--so I guess lighter work that was salable on the job market wasn't ideal, but an improvement.

You can stick a tongue depressor or popsicle stick into a Dixie cup of water, freeze it and use the handle to move the ice around on the affected area. 20 minutes of that can numb things pretty well to provide some non-narcotic relief if you hit the right spot.

Good luck.

Philip,

you may want to consider a nutritional support to help you kick the pains. Try vitamin B1 (high dose, something like 300 mg a few times a day, together with a good calcium supplement. Adding a helping of amino acid lysine 500mg to 1g would not hurt, either.

Try it out, it's been known to help even in severe cases, and the nutrients aren't known for any bad side effects.

I hope it lets up soon! I'd send you opiates, but then again the Nanny State might bust me for even writing it.

Yup I'd choose drugs, that's what they're made for. Whatever you do the blog is solid as ever, quality not quantity wins the day.

thanks fp and the rest of you. the sad reality is i have no access to health care, docs, pain pills, etc, so i'm having to tough this out the old-fashioned way.

I hope you're better Philip.