How An Icestorm Indirectly Resulted In Extreme Lower Back Pain
We had a bad icestorm here in Ontario last week which wrecked havoc for many homes and businesses losing electrical power. My own house lost power for maybe an hour or two but I was asleep. My local ski resort Blue Mountain apparently suffered a lot of damage at mountain top resulting in a loss of power to all of their ski lifts. What was planned to be my final week on the slopes for the ski season, Blue Mountain had to shut down for over a week (and at the time of this post is still shut down) as crews were still repairing and trying to restore power.
All of a sudden I had full days free as my mornings were no longer at Blue Mountain and it was still a bit early for scuba diving season. So to use some of my available free time I plunked myself in front of my computer to work on my next side hustle which will be completely online since I don’t want to put anymore wear and tear on my Mustang this summer by shopping/delivering for DoorDash/UberEats/Instacart like I did last year. For a few days I spent long hours sitting and working in front of my computer monitor. The prep work is not boring as the hours seemed to just fly by.
But these long hours sitting with I’m sure at times pretty bad chair posture ended up with excruciating lower back pain by the end of the week. I was barely able to move without sudden sharp pain in my lower back for about 2.5 days. As long as I was either standing, lying down or even sitting absolutely still, I would be okay. But any slight movement would set off enough pain to make me curse out some immediate F-bombs!
I had this type of lower back pain before but it’s been a few years. The only thing that I could think that may have caused this type of lower back pain is my extended time sitting at my desk. I’m sure the last time I had this type of thing years ago was also when I was on a lengthy project that required lots of computer time.
For this recent episode, I was further inconvenienced because I was out of groceries and had no more Tylenol left (even though I still had some Naproxen which I most certainly used). Fortunately there was shopping/delivery service for groceries available so I did end up ordering it through UberEats for not only food items but also a bottle of extra strength Tylenol. Of course having been in that shopper/delivery role myself last year, I made sure I took care of the driver with a generous tip – he even brought in my order straight to my kitchen which was greatly appreciated as I had trouble bending down without the pain flaring up.
So this is how the icestorm indirectly caused this recent bout of bad lower back pain which started on Friday morning and it wasn’t until Sunday afternoon when I felt the frequency of the pain flaring up decreased. It’s Monday as I’m writing this post now and for the most part, I think I’m pretty back to normal.
Strategies For The Future To Help Prevent Lower Back Pain
Of course I don’t want to experience this again if at all possible so I’m immediately starting some preventative strategies as follows;
- Take frequent breaks if working at my desk instead of non-stop extended time sitting
- Add a rolled up towel to support my lower back while sitting at my desk
- Consider buying a lumbar support to replace a rolled towel which I can use at desk, living room sofa and car
- Add core training to my exercise workouts as I’ve been a bit guilty of skipping core last year
- Just be more aware of bad posture (slouching) when I’m sitting
Lower back pain is actually quite common out there and hopefully my recent experience will help others who also suffer from this to take the right preventative steps.
