I have had lower back pain for a long time and was told I had arthritis in it . In the last couple of days when i am trying to do really anything , my back goes from it's normal pain to burning . It's in the lower spine in the center . I was putting some laundry away about an hour ago and it started up . It's intense . I am on the couch stuck to the recliner hoping it calms down . Does any one else have this or a clue what could be going on ? i am waiting for an appointment to go to a rheumatologist but haven't heard back from the doctor yet ,
Right now i am only on Cymballta and Klonapin I just got insurance again after years of not having it so I am having to start over on tests and scans of everything. My regular doctor is suppose to get me in with a new Rhuemy. I am going to call My doctor in the morning and if they don't have the appt. set up then I will go back to her and have her ex ray it . it is really starting to worry me , it starts out with my normal pain and goes into the burning and that is not tolerable it makes me sit very quick. Motrin doesn"t help at all . Sorry if any of this is misspelled or doesn't sound right I'm having a fog night
In my experience Fibro attacks me where I have been injured previously in my lifetime.
I understand the pain... waking up 400 times in the night trying to find a comfortable position so I can sleep, vomiting because the pain is so bad the body is confused & is trying to purge what is causing the pain, dreading having to use the toilet because sitting on it brings a whole new burning sensation all on its' own.... nothing seems to get rid of the pain completely.
I have (muscle relaxant) Cyclobenzaprine 10mg tabs & (pain) Hydrocodone APAP 325mg tabs.
In addition I use alternately (20mins) a heating pad & a freezer cold gel pack wrapped inside of a large kitchen towel & sometimes when I am truely desperate I stand in the shower with as hot as I can stand water & let the water beat against the pain.
I called the doctor this morning they were booked up . They told me to do ice and limit my activity . they said that no matter what the cause a nerve is involved so ice to prevent swelling . My other appointment is suppose to be for next week and they are going to call me with that . They said if the burning doesn't calm down to go to the E.R or call back in the morning and they would be able to get me in . I am starting to get that old familiar feeling that due to Fibro. I'm being taken serious over this .I really thought they would want to xray this pronto ?
I had burning pains throughout my buttocks region and twitching that traveled down my legs. While I had been dealing with other pains for years this pain put me out of work starting in April and I have not been back yet... well I did go back for only 5 days and back out again... I had just got my diagnoses and went back with only meds to treat my issues. It was the Bi lateral sacroilitis that was causing my pain... along with a twisted pelvis and 1/2in. leg length difference. My GP recommended I see a chiropractor... and I did. My spine was curved from L-1 to L-5. That from the twisted pelvis... so I went to him 3 times a week since the beginning of June and I can say that was a process but I believe it has worked to align my pelvis and spine. I have not felt that burning pain in a couple weeks... my treatment consisted of spinal adjustments...tens and moist heat therapy and in the past couple of weeks he added massage and decompression...I really hope you find some relief to the burning pain... I know how it can stop you in your tracks. If it were not for that burning pain in my backside I would still be at work pushing through all the other pain and wondering what was wrong with me, if I was dying and why no Dr. could tell me what was wrong... Drs seemed to only want to look at one issue and not all the issues as a whole... I believe sometimes we overwhelm them with the laundry list of issues. we overwhelm ourselves and sometimes only bring up the most bothersome issues because we believe they would not believe us if we told them everything... or we try to separate our issues when they all go together. My diagnoses came when I seen a Rheumatologist...and I got diagnosed with Fibro, sacroilitis and bursitis in many places including gluteal...tennis elbow in both elbows and golfers elbow in my left...still trying to deal with my laundry list diagnoses but so thankful that I am not dying... now I can get a grip on this stuff instead of it gripping me.Good luck and I hope you would consider a Chiropractor...
Bumping this antique thread up because of the fitting title and the depth in the post before this by @Ibsain_B for a longer fling on most of my back, but with focus on the lower back… I’m sure many of you can relate and might like to add ideas?
Tailbone: Keeping on with lower back, esp. tailbone (coccyx / SI / sacroileac joint (IS / ileosacral) / sacrum) pain: This is a really old one of mine, many decades before fibro. Got some of it sorted out, but by far not enough, and I’ll expand “a bit”, cos it’s something I’m trying to pinpoint at the moment.
Maddening: Sitting, too hard or too soft, can cause the worst & most horrible pain, can make me scream inside, cry, feel like wanting burn it out with iron rods, feel like running away from myself… 
(that’d be an 8 on my scale, my wife says for others that’s 12). So this can occasionally be one of the most maddening parts of my body problems, so I prefer alternatives to sitting.
Spine diagnoses: A diagnosis early on was sacrum arcuatum or acutum, i.e. the tailbone curves outside steeply, and back in, meaning direct contact to anything I’m sitting on. (This seems to be a typically German way of emphasizing a certain variant of a more bent sacrum, so there is not really an English equivalent but it helps me understand what might be causing the problems. A comment on proz.com says this, and uses the translations “increased sacral curvature” and “angulation”).
The other early diagnoses were Scheuermann/kyphosis, 3 slight scolioses and lumbar hyperlordosis.
Recent orthopedist didn’t mention all this, thought there is nothing much to explain my pain - a bit of osteochondrosis in the lower back and in my neck, pelvic tilt, ‘polyarthralgia’ (that was a month before/aside from the fibro diagnosis). Maddening too. Whilst the PTs think there is a lot to explain it and can help bit by bit, but still lots to do.
Everyone is sure my ‘harmless’ spinal tumour has nothing to do with it.
Treatments:
Back exercises are what I’ve always had to mobilize it with, 8’/d without fail, so best every morning before doing anything else in case I forget, because even compensation later means a few hours of additional pain, anything the next day means at least 24h of additional pain.
(Generally I need I also need shoes without any heels and a hard mattress, but since fibro with a soft topper and a lambskin under my thighs/tailbone.)
Acupuncture didn’t help me, it harmed, very strangely.
Osteopathy did, incl. very direct manipulation, incl. once inside, to flex everything again…,
acupressure similarly, but in a different way.
Twist-stretching everywhere, standing & lying down. Means standing (or lying face down) with feet turned outwards, if necessary very sharply outwards, maybe one in front of the other, alternately, then stretching back backwards and if it doesn’t irritate anyone arms up with palms twisted outwards too, then everything inwards, then outwards, each for 10-20’’. That also helps against a hard to grasp irritating “lower back unrest” which got worse when I tried levodopa/L-dopa, an RLS-med, but I’ll be trying it again some time soon, just to be sure. Getting up and moving a while or cold showering are what I can do to get it down: Cold showering disturbs my sleep less, interestingly, except after 5am.
Back “(hatha) yoga”, for upper, middle, and lower back, is something I’ve had to add to my back exercises since fibro. I use 20 of the exercises that help me most from a DVD, of which I’ve type them into my mobile to use whenever I need it.
Specific exercises like my PTs show me, or Bob & Brad (PTs, not docs, btw, despite the ties ;-D) and the German ‘Liebscher & Bracht’ on youtube can help. Actually if I have a certain problem and nothing is helping I just type the symptom into youtube and work thru all the videos that might fit. In this case the body part words I’ve used in the first line above.
Sitting: I tried and still am trying many ways of sitting, e.g. once had a hole cut in a plastic chair, I always need chairs with a hole in the back, anything reclining, like car seats or a soft couch are OK for 10’, then dreadful. Car seats I have to put up as straight as possible or sit turned somehow. “Donut” cushions somehow don’t work well, nor does sitting on only one side at a time, and things that help others without tailbone problems with their lower backs like balans chairs, wedges, office chairs or gym balls (Swiss balls etc.)
I often have to sit with one foot alternately under my backside. But that’s got worse since fibro due to more pain, and the stiffness.
But actually standing and moving a bit was good, so my ‘workstation’ was an adjustable & swiveable bar stool and table. Then fibro made standing longer than 3’ almost impossible, got better, esp. in the last months due to acupressure & GABA.
Best now for sitting is often strangely sitting on the carpet, even leaned against the couch, altho that shd be too hard… or twisted around towards the couch or a stool with my laptop on it.
Lying down: In the first year of my fibro full flare I spent most resting time at daytime on my couch (with laptop). Lying in bed: I’m often twisted on my front, similar to ‘recovery position’, but twisted a bit more by putting the upper leg backwards. Neck since fibro made that harder, so wedge a pillow or cushion under my head, so it’s fairly straight. Now with a lambskin under thighs and partly tailbone I can lie on my back for about 15 mins. (but with a small cushion under my hunchback, so neck and shoulders can fall back, that may also take some pressure off my tailbone.) I’ve always had to move around changing positions a lot at night. Now with fibro it’s got so bad it means having to sleep alone, no fogging over any more or it builds up inside of an hour at the most, which means I have to get up and move for a longer time.
I’m still looking for better sitting possibilities. Often have to take a thin cushion with me to places like outdoor eating, or just not sit.
Our kitchen chair is one of the worst, and I can’t find out why. It’s hard, with a bit of padding. Neither a thicker nor a thinner cushion is helping, even if I let my tailbone stick out behind it.
What I’m trying now is my bar stool, which is similarly hard plus padded, but at least movable.
In the past I’d often thought hard surfaces are better than soft ones, but I’ve realized now fibro is forcing me to look more closely that it’s only better for the tailbone, worse for I think the buttocks - not sure how that works at all.
Funniest experience was in the rheum./fibro clinic a talk about pain management, where everyone had to sit on terrible chairs which hurt them terribly. I cdnt more than 4’, I was leaning against the wall most of the time, like I often do in talks - I always go to the back, so I can stand up, do exercises, and dance a bit if fitting/possible without distracting, or at least move my pelvis in the form of a lying eight.
Cycling is one of the things I thought I could do best, but it’s just OK for the first minutes, and I’m a bit distracted for a time, but the saddle for my backside and back is a big problem, so I often used to cycle standing up in between, which fibro has made very difficult. (Also realized that almost everything hurts (feet, hands, elbows, neck) during it and for a while after, but it’s still better than walking, cars etc. Knees and hunchback only don’t hurt, because I have a high saddle and the handlebar pretty far away, so I’m stretched.)
But I’ll be working on changing all seat forms to those that work best … once I’ve figured that out… 
BTW - despite getting funny looks from orthopedists about my inexplicable back pain, I do not have generalized hyperalgesia: When I stub my toe (like just now) it doesn’t hurt much (unless it’s really bad), if I get a bruise or scrape I usually don’t even know where from, etc.
Additions and update on sitting and lying down
I’ve had back pain at least since my teens, had it well under control due to 10’ back exercises first thing (in bed) without fail. Fibro flared it up again, now under control again. In my case the areas neck, shoulders, middle and lower back and more are all individual, altho partly interconnected.
The hard mattress and shoes without heels I mentioned were recommended by a good orthopedist when I was 20. Others have said both are not necessary or even wrong, others say it’s very individual - I still need both. With fibro I’ve had to add a soft topper and a lambskin. Carefully engineered insoles didn’t help, it’s still shoes without heels, sneakers in the summer and Roots or now barefoot shoes/boots in the winter.
Like some PTs recommend I try to keep all my postures under 20’, but it’s hard - I’ve used alarms and all kinds of reminder things, but they of course only work if you don’t ignore them…
Having bar stool and table next to a wall lets me lean sideways if nec. a while to relax. I often lean against walls or doors in between, esp. when Ache is high & energy low.
This bar stool has also helped find out that most normal chairs hurt me because I need them higher , so sitting at a slight slant / different angle. That also explains why I often try to slouch a while on chairs etc. until my hunchback hurts. I can also sit on the floor on a carpet, leaning my back on a couch for a while, then turning left and preferably right, with my laptop on the couch. That’s actually my favourite working position now, altho standing has got better again. I’ve now started taking the bar stool everywhere, I use it instead of my kitchen chair too. As it’s a bit high for the kitchen table it’s not too good for my hunchback (a low chair is better for that), but my lower back can get worse quicker than my middle back. Higher chairs for me was the helpful idea of my acupressurist.
The “lower back unrest” I often get at night I’ve now found is not something like RLS, it was especially being caused by lying on my back too long (more than 5-10 mins), despite a soft topper and a lambskin there (also for paining thighs).
Car seats: I now usually lie pretty reclined most of the time (I never drive myself & hate cars anyway). That way I can twist better and don’t get too much off of draughts/drafts from my wife’s open window or the air conditioning etc. which I quickly get a sore throat from, if longer then cold or flu.
Putting one foot up under my backside helps a bit due to the twist and the tailbone being free.
For my (slight) hunchback my morning back exercises were & are vital, plus the about 20 back “yoga” exercises whenever necessary. As mentioned above I’ve been putting a small grain cushion, then that plus a small pillow, under it, lying on my back at night for 5-10’, e.g. when going back to bed after a break. It seemed to help the hunch “itch” & pain. My acupressurist supported doing it for my posture, incl. shoulders back. Now I’ve realized that that’s bad for my SIJ I do still do it a bit, but with my lower back twisted.
As I’d been having a bit of rib, shoulder and neck problems the last days I’ve tested my arnica cream again, it worked pretty quickly.
For shoulders I use twisting, the hunchback-pillow, trigger pointing and arnica cream.
For neck I do neck-twisting exercises: sideways and up and down movements, with a straight upright back (hand on breast helps) breathing in the rhythm (I can never remember which way round tho). The physiotherapists in the neck ‘n’ back I went to said then do them diagonally, increasingly tough (swing arms watching your hand, then arms with weights, then arms in the opposite movement to the hand). My acupressurist disagrees and says that’s too tough on the discs, altho I have no problems with them. My back yoga book/DVD doesn’t suggest the diagonal ones either. The neck’n’back group is way too tough for me, I can only do part of what they do, need to rest quite a bit of the hour and only go occasionally.
With everything I often need the help of my acupressurist: acupressure, trigger pointing, scar treatments, pneumatron and back mobilization (starting with swinging my whole spine to a fro).
What harmed a lot last year rather than help was a hyaluronic acid injection under CT in my lower back. A new orthopedist wanted to go thru my whole spine doing that. It took me 3 months to recover. Despite greatly increased pain she insisted I continue, my wife insisted I stop - my wife won, luckily for me.