Is severe lower back pain a Lyme disease symptom?

It can be from lyme making past symptoms worse. Or not. Either way , you want to feel better.

Pain has a reason behind it obviously, below are some common physical reasons that anyone can get. Lyme can actually change the physical/chemical balances in muscle. Lyme also messes up the endocrine system (hormones); of which can also cause muscle tension. Tight muscles cause pain in two ways: the actual tension itself, and tight muscles can impinge on nerves.

The area you describe is the glutes (buttocks as Forest Gump calls it).

When they tighten up , they can pull on the SI (sacro/illiac) "tailbone area" making pain. Glutes can also pull on the lower lumbar L3-L5 creating sciatic nerve pain shooting down to ones foot.

On the side just below the hip crest (the illiac bone that sticks out) is where the IT band (that goes down leg) and side of both glute muscles merge together forming a very thin but tough fibrous (white tissue) area. This is a pain causing area for many people.

Tight muscles lack circulation, so the pain and tension become self-feeding.

All this uneven tension / force can even create pain and ware in the hip / femoral head joint (hip ball/socket) long term similar to arthritis, even though it technically is not RA or Lyme Arthritis.

If you have a golf ball laying around Lay on it in different hip / but areas to break the tension cycle, let circulation flow again and start healing. The less "insulation" one has, the easier this is to accomplish. LaCross balls (a little bigger) can do this too. Tennis balls are to soft-do nothing for long term.

Be gentile at first, then get more aggressive to learn your tolerance level. I use a Theracane just below the beltline (low back/upper but). I also use a therea cane on the sides of the low spine muscles for trigger point release there.

An Active Release practioner (they have a website) can release these muscles too. They are usually chiros with deeper interests (functional medicine ect) than just classic chiro moves.

Post Edited (astroman) : 8/7/2016 9:35:17 AM (GMT-6)

Yes, Yes and Yes it can be due to Lyme! I suffered for years with intense random low back pain in my SI joints. The pain would target the left or the right joint but rarely both at the same time. It was a very sharp localized pain that was debilitating, making it impossible to bend over or pick anything up off of the floor. I would perform all of the orthopedic tests on myself that I knew and nothing ever came up as a strong positive for the etiology. I was able to cope with it for so long as a chiropractor because I was able to find someone to give me an adjustment that helped temporarily. Now I haven't had it for almost a year after I started antibiotics. This was a huge eye opener for me. Your pain could be pain from something else so please tell your Dr. about it, but to your original question the answer is absolutely yes.

Now most everyone I know gets relief from heat -- EXCEPT me. Heat made those lyme buggers get all excited like it was recess play time. Heat made me dizzy and light headed.

Advice from my doc was to ice it since heat made things get worse.

So if at first you don't feel better with heat, try ice.

Hello H Mommy,
Yes. Yes as well. Unfortunately I have had that kind of pain. Mine may have begun
before I had Lyme. It's hard for me to know which came first. When I was 29 I bent down to
tie my shoes and couldn't get up. I went to an orthopedic doctor who said I had a swollen/
inflamed disc
in my lower back and to go home and lay on my side and tuck my knees up. He said to put
ice on it so the swelling would go down. He said to do this for 3-4 days which I did.
The pain was horrible and I couldn't move. I probably took Tylenol at the time or they
may have given me some muscle relaxers. Then, it went away and after that I
began going to a chiropractor.
I learned body mechanics and did yoga and stretching.
Every 3 or 4 years, it would get aggravated again and I'd have to go through the ice routine.
Some 20 years later, it ruptured and I had it removed by surgery. There was no
choice when that happened.
It was another ten years later, that I was diagnosed with Lyme. Was it causing this
problem all along and I didn't know that? Hard to say.
Now, I have pain in my upper back and neck. I'm wearing an ice pack around my
neck today as I type.
My experience is that the chiropractors have kept me going. They can usually tell
you what's going on in that area sometimes just by feeling the vertebra or x rays if you get
a good one. It doesn't mean not to treat for the Lyme. I continue to do both.
I hope you can find some relief for this. It's certainly no picnic that's for sure!!!

Same boat here. Upper back/neck/shoulder pain. Some days just bearable, others debilitating. I cant sleep on my sides anymore. Im really hoping this is something that will improve with treatment.

H Mommy

Up near the top of every thread is a box you can click and it's labeled "subscribe to this thread".

You will get an email any time someone posts on the thread....whether it's your thread or someone else's.

I have lots of debilitating back pain. Upper from my neck across shoulder blades or lower Lumbar area, or sometimes the whole thing. Had it for many years, but I've had Lyme for 30, so.....

Xrays, mri's, bone density tests, many of each. I started with being told I have degenerative disc disease, then severe osteoporosis which gets worse every year, and then I was told I have calcium deposits on either side of my spine that are fusing together into long, bacon like strips. I have lost 2 1/2 inches of height in about a 5 year span. My bone replacement function is haywire. I have a muscle relaxer and narcotic pain med to take as needed.

I can't really blame Lyme, I don't think, for these problems, but I'm pretty sure it hasn't helped.

I depend on the medications on a daily basis, practically, unless I want to just not move, and be bed or wheelchair ridden. Movement aggravates the pain.

Let's see family doctor its part of aging. After complaining for months get a back MRI. Mild degeneration at l4-l5 that must be it. See a surgeon like 6 months later who was nice but pretty much told me my back was better then probably 7 out of 10 people. Says there's nothing he can do. Start having tingling in my foot a LLMD is convinced I have bartonella and Lyme. Start some antibiotics and the tingling reduces as well as the back pain. Must have found the problem except doxy pretty much is anti inflammatory. Stopped treatment doesn't get worse or better. End up in the ER with appendicitis get that taken care of doctor is amazed how much inflammation I have. After surgery back pain and foot pain is 100% gone. Figured it would come back never has. They also found cancer in my appendix and suspect it was wreaking havoc causing many symptoms.

There are so many causes for back pain don't put all your eggs in one basket. If you ask on a Lyme board it will be from Lyme.