Today was the second time this year I’d thrown out my back. The back muscle spasms are so bad it puts me in entirely different state of mind. It’s due to the amount of brain piercing bursts of pains I experience. Transferring from the floor to the couch almost had me black out. It only takes the slightest move to trigger the spasmed muscle(s). It’s like playing a game of Russian roulette but it’s your body movements. Cool huh?
Do y’all get this too? Why is it so fucking god awful painful? How do you handle your episodes?
Not quite pass out, no. But it can get bad enough that it amounts to the same because the mind has nothing left to process other things. All it can do is deal with the pain. Sounds get muffled, you lose perception of the rest of body. It’s just that pain filling your mind, and that’s all you are.
But think about it. The back is closest to the CNS, the central nervous system. It supports and protects the spine. So your mind pays extra attention to pain from there.
When it’s muscle spasms, there’s also the fact that it immobilizes you, so on a primitive level, if you don’t resolve that injury signal, you could die in a survival level of existence. So your brain it harder to ignore than something like a cramp in your arm.
You just have to find what works for you. Me? If I don’t have access to the little combo of muscle relaxer, breakthrough pain med, and NSAID, it comes down to meditative practice. You practice every day, controlling your breathing, doing progressive muscle relaxation, and figuring out ways to isolate and wall off the pain for brief periods so that you can function to some degree.
But I’ve got nerve pain added to the mix, so what works for me might not work for you.