Is that no matter how good your self-diagnostic skills are you can’t make yourself any better.
I have inflamed facet joints at Tx10/11 – I know this because I know what happened. I did a long run with a heavy pack, this forced me into extension and limited rotation to lower thoracic. This irritated my facet joints (the bits that control movement through different planes in the spine).
This underlines the importance of good history. Often clients self diagnose – nothing wrong with this but don’t skimp on the history you tell your physio. I can diagnose most conditions from history alone. this doesn’t negate the need for an examination as I can’t guess the number of possible contributory factors.
Its important you get this correctly diagnosed should it happen to you as the treatment is the opposite for a discogenic back pain or a muscle spasm. Moving the spine into extension and rotation exacerbates the problem so the safest thing to do is long, gentle stretches like the one below that I am doing as opposed to the way Natali is stretching – you can see she is forcing into hyperextension.
What does this mean for me? Well, rest for a few days – I can barely move. But I should be back to work by Monday.
