Dealing with back pain & riding. | Page 2 | GTAMotorcycle.com

Dealing with back pain & riding.

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Inversion table and get rid of the cruiser. Horrible seating position for a bad back. Look into a sport tourer like an FJR1300, I have 2 bad disks and spine messed up. Inversion table 2 years ago and I have had no pain since and riding a sport tourer or sport naked actually makes my back feel better!
 
Celebrex for pain.
Kidney belt REALLY helps for distance.
Motoskivvies for butt relief and AirHawk
 
crankcall said:
i trust you mean flushed them metaphorically, we dont have the capacity to filter a lot of that out of the water supply. Folks, take your expired/no longer needed meds to any pharmacy and have them disposed of, its a bit of a danger to all of us.
Catching a trout with a big raging Viagra hardon would wreck anybodies day. Well, most people
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brother
my expired meds go to Lake Ontario
very unlikely to contribute to your dog's low self esteem
 
Thx all, haven’t forgot the thread, but it’s been a long day. Went back out again after I got home and ended they day with about 800km lol.

I’ll follow up with things tomorrow.
 
PrivatePilot said:
Anyone have any magic elixirs or solutions?

I’ve got what I’m 90% sure (still not 100% diagnosed but it’s what the doctors are leaning towards, and then symptoms fit) ruptured disc in my lumbar. Too many years of being a human forklift at work...?

Anyhow, usually it seems to heal up and I go for months at a time without much pain, but them suddenly I move the wrong way in the most ridiculously silly way, and boom, I’m pooched.

I have a TENS machine and am actually wearing it as I ride right now on the way back from Montreal. I’ve seen a chiropractor but it seemed like a waste of money and did nothing. I have a backrest on my bike and have it adjusted to support my lower back.

I take a regular prescription level max dose of ibuprofen morning and night (maintenance for a previous C1/C2 neck spinal fusion) and when my back is screwed up I take as much robaxecet as I can every day without going over what’s safe. Yes, you can mix NSAID’s and Acetaminophen based meds, don’t worry, I know what’s safe and what’s not. It usually takes the edge off, but not totally recently. Pretty sore still today, for example.

I don’t want to do anything narcotic as it just masks things of course, and I refuse to ride under any sort of influence whatsoever.

Any suggestions? This is really sapping some of the enjoyment out of the distance/endurance riding thing I really enjoy.
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So I have 6 herniated discs. The worst ones in my lower lumbar. I was diagnosed in 2010. Some of the damage is from a powerlifting incident trying to squat 660lb and my ass hit the floor with the weight still supported on my shoulders. The force went and compressed my back and fractured vertebrae. The best info I got came from Stu McGill. After rebuilding myself a bit I went on to squat 750lb in competition and 800lb in training. I may not be as bad as you, though I did have a period where getting out of bed in the morning was a 10min process.

Stu McGill was (retired from there now I believe) a professor at Waterloo University who is an expert on the kinematics of the back. When I spoke with him the first time it was between talks with NBA and NFL teams/players. In his books/videos ( Books: Lower back pain exercises & rehabilitation, Big 3 - BackFitPro.com ) he talks about looking at how you move and how you should move. Your core strength will let you control your back and protect it. There are the 'McGill 3' exercises (Low-back Rehab Exercises: Stuart McGill’s “Big Three") to help build the core. You can then increase the complexity and difficulty to increase the core strength.

I still every so often start to have sensations of my back getting ****** off and I can usually relate it to being lazy in slouching too much at the desk etc. But I have not had significant back issues in a while and the main that that helped was learning what was going on, how to protect my back with core strength and just trying not to be 'sloppy'.

Stu did not see directly as he did not have availability in 2010. Me passed me to one of his associates Ed Cambridge who is out of Brampton. Cambridge Sport & Spine: Expert Biomechanical Consultation Ed is who diagnosed my issues and started me on the path to be able to do what I wanted again. OHIP did not cover the session I had with Ed and it was not cheap. But you might find some answers from visiting Ed? Or when Stu was a professor he would take calls to talk with people with back issues so maybe just contact them at Contact BackFitPro.com and Dr. Stuart McGill - Ontario, Canada and see if you can at least have a chat with Stu?

After some learning from Stu/Ed I also found a local chiropractor / ART who believed in similar things to Stu/Ed who helped me keep things undercontrol while putting stress on my body during my powerlifting. I'll admit not that I am not lifting I have got lazy and need to get back to my McGill 3 exercises, and it would really help my trackday riding as well to have more core again.

Jeff
 
Holy that must have hurt, I dropped a tree once and the top kicked back an fell on my head,
fortunately at the time I was wearing a trials helmet and standing on about 3 feet of snow.
 
Herniated discs here at C7 and L5/S1. Not sure what caused C7 but L5/S1 was attempting to lift something absurdly heavy with my legs at a very advantageous angle and overloaded the spine; squashed the piss out of that disc; don't think it's ruptured but has a bulge and some impingements or something. When it flares I seriously want to die; it hurts that much...

TENS isn't going to help. Anti-inflammatories might offer some temporary relief. Be careful of habitual use of ibuprofen re kidney health. I think chiro and RMT has been a waste of time and money for me. I'm looking into an inversion table; relieving pressure and allowing the disc to normalize is the only thing I can think of with merit.

Ironically, for me, riding the bike seems to help. Both the Aprilia and its predecessor, a Fazer 800, have/had just the right ergos to unload the lower back a bit. Being able to get on the pegs for rough patches of road instead of sending jolts directly up the spine helps. Your machine might not be great for this.
 
So then it sounds like we all agree the best treatment for back pain is anti-gravity and to to ride more (y)
 
I cant speak highly enough about the inversion table, the streaching and decompression allowed my wifes discs to go back into place. She was seriously messed up, her doctor at the time also had a very bad back and had undergone two surgeries. His advice was try anything before going for surgery .
 
Allistonfjr said:
For myself I prefer just a slight lean forward as with my FJR. Takes any pressure off the tail bone.
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Also depends on how softly sprung your bike is. My Softail Custom rides like a Cadillac. You can lessen the pressure on your lower spine by having lower handlebars, but with each increase in angle comes more pressure on your neck. With a herniated disc, definitely a lower set of bars will be necessary. I have disc pain at the base of my neck from being rear-ended in a car accident. I use extra strength Voltaren when the pain flares up, which lets me sleep at night.
 
L4-5 ruptured years ago and it took a long time to heal, like years. I had MRI, saw a back specialist at St Michael's hospital and was getting spinal cortisone shots at the same time that gave me some relief. Specialist said if I the injections helped and if I hadn't lost bowel control that he'd recommend no operation. Cortisone shot allowed me to up my game on core exercises (already was working out)

Physical therapist told me to sell my bike, and I said not going to happen. I wear a back support on the bike as insurance and since it's not a cruiser I ride it like a jockey and my legs take up a lot of the pounding. I have sat squarely on it like a cruiser and OMG as others have mentioned your back takes all the jolts. It sounds to me (absolutely not a doctor) that you have a pinched nerve because in my case there was no good time, it was all bad until it healed.

This is the doc that specializes in injections Wilderman Medical Clinic | Interventional Regenerative and Pain clinic you need a recommendation from a family doc and the wait time may be long but he is the best so people come from out of town just to see him.

Best of luck.
 
2 slipped discs lead to sciatica. Leg tingles, couldn't walk down any stairs, missed days of work when it flared, the whole nine yards.

Physio saved me, massage and chiro was a bust.

Riding a super sport for any length of time makes me cringe.
 
On sportbikes it was my knees.On my current bike (has a sorta cruiser position) my back seems to bother me more but I've gained quite a bit of weight too(belly) so that doesnt help either.
I have a bauerfiend back brace which helps A LOT.It is German made , I bought it at a medical supply store in Mississauga.
I also have pegs on my bike that are positioned below my butt so kind of like a sportbike,that way I can rotate my feet from the forward controls to the other pegs.
Back starts to bother me - I usually move one foot back underneath me
-Knee(s)bothers me -Move foot(feet) forward
- rotating constantly,lol
 
Celebrex is OK for short term usage and inflammation control, but it's absolutely brutal on your digestive tract. That's my any docs/physio/etc practitioners only give it in limited dosages.

I would suggest trying several different kinds of bikes - different brands of cruisers, sport tourers, nakeds etc.
Rode a Victory Magnum, and within 15 minutes my lower back was in incredible pain. The saddle tilted my hips at such an angle that all my weight pressed down, just above my hips. I couldn't wait to get off it. Took a 15 minute break, hopped on a Victory Hammer S, and it gave me no issues at all. Nice and comfy. Rode some Hardly Ableson products with the same result. Some give me pain, others comfy enough.

Rode a friend's new R1, and it's super aggressive seating position. On the track, great. Can't see it as a regular ride at all. It feels even more aggressive than my old Triumph Daytona 675. My KTM RC8r, I can ride all day long as long as the road has some nice turns I can move around on. The seat is pretty much a plank, but the riding position is great.

I strongly suggest trying other bikes at demo days - it may just be your answer.
 
MSM helps take a lot of the joint pain away from riding and actually has positive side effects. Make sure you're not allergic to sulphur / sulpha drugs.

A cruiser is the worst thing for your back as the lower discs are constantly being jarred. As someone wrote, the C shape. Oddly enough, people think sportbikes are uncomfortable...yet they force you to sit upright taking the jarring off your lower disc's and forcing you to use your legs.

MSM
Buffered Vitamin C
Tilt table (or gravity boots if you're in shape)
An ab cruncher doing 50 ab crunches per day
Sloppy push ups 50 per day
A change of bike

... and you'll be riding past your expiration date :)
 
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Messed up my lower back severely last Friday rushing through my workout at the gym. Mostly recovered now. What helped was heat pack and the following simple core excercises:


They really make a difference. Provide relief rightaway.
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