It does. When I sprained my back a few weeks ago, it was like running into a brick wall. Hi, I'm here doing stuff and living my - WHAM! And poofter! life gone. On your back for 4 days. Icing and pain killers and no lifting of anything.

This is STUPID. This SUCKS.

It's horrible. It's going to take you a while before it starts to feel completely better, and even then you're going to have to baby it.

At least that was my experience when I threw out my back.

Susan, that sounds awful. I'm glad to hear your DH is on his way home. Meanwhile, if Annabel wakes up, don't pick her up -- this may be more painful than your back -- but try keep her occupied in the crib with whatever you need to placate her. A favorite toy, a cookie, whatever you can toss her. She'll be okay until your DH gets home, and you might really need to put yourself first in this case.

Thirding Hec and Aimee. Thrown backs suck.

Oh, Susan! You poor thing! I hope your DH is home. Please take it easy and take care of yourself.

Right now, I don't think I could pick Annabel up. Just getting myself from the living room, where this happened, to the bedroom, where she is, almost seems like too much for me. Thank God it's a one storey house, 'cuz I really couldn't do stairs. I just went to the bathroom, and the back pain made it ten times the ordeal it ever was right after Annabel was born.

Funny, I no longer care so much about that contest. Can I have all my finalist~ma transferred to continued nap~ma for Annabel, fast bus~ma for DH, and please-God-make-it-stop-hurting~ma for me?

Susan, you've still got all my ~ma, so direct it as needed.

Can you make it far enough to get some ibuprofen and some ice, Susan?

Backs just go out like that. The worst I know of is a friend who went to open her car door in a parking lot. Her back went into a spasm and she went down screaming next to the car. She had to be taken to the hospital in an ambulance and stayed there for several days being pumped full of muscle relaxants.

But what does it actually mean when your back goes out? I mean, medically, what happened to me? And how long will it hurt this bad? Right now I'd be happy to spend most of the time lying on the couch if I could do little things like go to the bathroom without it hurting so bad.

Is this because I'm not really young anymore? Or because I need to lose 30 lbs.? Both? Neither?

(Really wish the doc would hurry up and call back.)

But what does it actually mean when your back goes out?

Ahh, well there are a number of theories on this, but backs are still fairly mysterious even to the medical community.

The most consistently advanced theory I've heard is that as you get older the discs between your vertabrae get less elastic and tend to fray. When your back "goes out" what is often happening is that you've herniated a disc and it's spilling all it's juice out. Which means you're now getting pressure on all those lovely nerve endings in your back and it hurts like fuck and you can't even think about bending in certain directions.

How long is variable. When mine first went out, I was barely functional for a week. After that I was more mobile, but it still hurt for a long time after and continues to get sore. Eventually you'll get back to full mobility but you really have to be careful with it because once you do it once, it's a sign that it can go out again. You'll need some strong pain killers to deal with it. Nothing less than Vicodin makes a dent on me when my back goes.

Bad backs are one of nature's little gifts you get when you hit your thirties.