Just an observation

We have a saying in our office "It's what you don't know that will get you".
Hope the snow melts and your back gets relief very soon.

Jim - You may be in one of the same boats I am. Along with so many other medical conditions that have become evident as I've hit the magic 70, I have some arthritis in my back. The unusual growth of arthritic tissue gives me a propensity toward pinching a nerve in my lower back. When this happens, I could be walking, working, or just plain sitting in a chair. The last time it hit in full was a few years ago. I was sitting, and the resultant muscle spasm tossed me out of the chair and down face-first on the carpet. I was lucky not to be sitting in a lawn chair out on the concrete patio. That time I spent a full day at the ER, getting X-rays (no MRI for me -- pacemaker) and the diagnosis of pinched nerve. All they could do was medicate.

The doc summed it up succinctly, saying "There's good news and bad. The good news is that this will get better on its own over the next week or so. The bad news is that it will happen again." I just try to be careful.

Here in the upper middle rust belt (near Chicago), we get heavy snow at times, but not so much this year. We have a mid-sized snow blower, but if we got one of those 2-3 foot dumps, I'd wait for the plow. I just know that I shouldn't do that much snow, period.

I can't help much in understanding PCa, as I's a relative newcomer. I can say, though, that in the absence of any prescription meds for back spasms, I've found that a good single-malt whiskey can help. It may not stop the pain, but you won't care so much any more. . .

Bohemond -

Your situation with your back reminds me of an injury I had a good while ago (while in my 30's), and how I dealt with it.

While at work one day I was racing down a flight of stairs, really going too fast. Okay, you know how, when you are going down a flight of stairs, it has somehow got into your mind that there is one more step at the bottom of the stairs when there isn't? So you take that one last step down, thinking your foot will go down, but SLAM, it hits the floor instead, because the space you thought was there really wasn't?

Well, that's what I did, and in doing so instantaneously I felt this blinding, excruciating pain in the lower area of my spine, so bad I just crumpled to the floor. There was no one in the area at the time to rush over and ask me what was wrong, but I just laid there for a couple of minutes or so, in terrible pain, then slowly managed to rise up, but only haltingly, as sharp pains shot out from the vertebra, or whatever it was, that had been jammed.

The pain eventually subsided, as I had come to lean up against the wall, and there was no permanent damage done, as everything was still working, just the unremittant sharp pain. I managed to hobble back to my department, and spent the rest of the day at my desk, minimizing movement.

Eventually the pain did go away, but for the next 2-3 months as I recall, it would occasionally come back, painfully and without warning, as sharp as ever, and would linger for a few hours or so, then go away, only to reappear a few days or weeks later during that time, until, for whatever reason, it stopped altogether.

Anyway, the reason for this post is to report something I found that did help considerably with the pain when these spinal pain attacks, I shall call them, did occur during those 2-3 months.

I had tried all the creams, rubbing compounds, etc. I could find when the pain would occur, but none of them did anything. Then, at my wife's suggestion, I tried applying a heating pad to the area, set as hot as I could stand it, staying in bed as I applied it, and that made a considerable difference

There are articles that support this idea, that heating pads can help with this problem. Here's an example:

/www.spine-health.com/treatment/heat-therapy-cold-therapy/benefits-heat-therapy-lower-back-pain

Whether or not the heating pad route was curative for my back injury, or whether the spinal pain finally just went away on its own, I don't know. But I can attest that using the heating pad was a huge help in dealing with the pain while it was there.

Just visited my MO yesterday and, as usual, he runs through a list of physical symptoms, asking if I have any. I always tell him that I wouldn’t know I have cancer if I hadn’t been told that I do. Unfortunately that probably won’t always be the case.

I'm afraid there is some truth to the comments of several of you about age and activity. I did begin to notice a few years ago that things are heavier than they used to be -- a 50 pound bag of dog food now feels more like 70. But --- but -- but, I still feel like I'm 19 inside -- ok, maybe 35. I get together with a few old high school friends at a restaurant every once in a while and I'm amazed that, unlike me, they are all old.
Jim