How long can stiffness last?

[ta0271]

My current worry is that my lower back pain is caused by Ankylosing Spondylitis. I've had back pain and stiffness for about 3 months now, every day, all day. I also have a couple other symptoms of AS, like achy heels (hoping this is due to my running, though I've taken several days off and they still hurt). My symptoms also started when I had a UTI with an atypical organism, which I've found can be a triggering event for the development of AS.

Anyway, I'm trying to make myself believe that the back pain and stiffness are just from anxiety and muscle tension, so I was wondering if anyone has had muscle tension causing pain like this for such a long time, and if it tends to be on and off or constant throughout the day? If I'm walking around I don't have much pain at all, I think because my back is straight, but sitting or any bending of my spine really hurts.

Thanks for reading, I appreciate all of your time.

[Fishmanpa]

My current worry is that my lower back pain is caused by Ankylosing Spondylitis.

Someone has been Googling! Tsk Tsk :lac:

Just so you know... things like this take time. I've been battling what has turned out to be a wrist sprain for several weeks (I have no idea how I did it!). Anyway... it still hurts and will for at least another three weeks or so. I've thrown my back out many times and it takes months to heal. It is what it is.

Positive thoughts

[ta0271]

I actually haven't googled in a couple weeks - I only let myself come on this site for symptom information. I just know all this about the disease from the googling I did when my symptoms first started.

And I know these things take time, but it's just worrying me because it has been months with no improvement. If anything it's a little worse. And I can't find any posts on here from people with similar problems that resolved with time, so of course, like any irrational person, I feel like I must be the exception.

I read that 4-5% of people with chronic lower back pain end up having AS. I read that months ago and even that small percent still terrifies me.

[adventurine]

Hi there!

I'm no doctor or anything like that, but backs can be funny things. I think sometimes you can hurt it with not much effort at all. I threw my back out randomly by just putting sun cream on, I wasn't even bending I was putting it on my arms! The gp more or less congratulated me on my freak injury and I thought I had some sort of bone disease but it was just me randomly throwing my back out. Still don't know how I did it. Hurt for ages though!

I get frequent lower back pain everyday and pain in my knees, after years of heckling the doctors a specialist revealed that my pelvis is at a tilt as are my legs which can put a lot of pressure on the lower back and knees. I've had it for years and years and no other problems than the ones I got, no new developments there :)

What I find with my tension from anxiety is that I'll get stiff and also a weird fatigue and start twitching sometimes which always freaks me out. I get it in my shoulders or other places depending on which muscles are tense, they get sore after while too.

What I'm trying to say from my own experiences is that there can be many causes of back pain, not all of them an illness! I think you should go to your gp so they can help you feel better :)

[ta0271]

Thanks for your awesome response! I'm becoming more and more convinced every day that it's all just musculoskeletal pain, especially because things like massages and stretching provide, albeit temporary, relief, and I don't think that would be the case with a more serious disease.

Everybody I ask has had issues with their back at some point in their life, so I'm not sure why it has been so hard for me to believe that I'm just like so many other people instead of some rare exception. I suppose that's the nature of health anxiety, but the new medicine my GP has me on seems to be slowly kicking in and I'm able to put it to the back of my mind more often. Still no great improvement to my back stiffness, but rather, I'm finding that my attitude towards it is slowly shifting from "this is going to keep getting worse oh god" to "well, I have back issues now, let's figure out how to minimize them and get back to life." You guys have all been super helpful, so thank you! And of course, the more stories of normal people's back trouble the better I'll feel :)