I am 33 years old. About a year and a half ago, while training in the gym, I felt pain in the left side of my back while doing squats and deadlifts. After a few days, the pain didn’t completely go away, but I thought it would disappear like everything else, and I would be able to train again. However, when I tried to train again, after a very short time, the pain returned fully. The pain occurs only in the left side of the back, never in the right, and has been present more or less constantly for a year and a half now. The pain most often appears when rotating to the right and bending forward. I don’t feel pain in the spine, only in the muscle, which I’m unsure if it’s strained or tight. I’ve had several massages and therapies, but no one has explained the cause of the pain to me, nor has it ultimately helped.
Most lower back pains resolve spontaneously and without treatment within a few days to a few weeks from onset. Of those that do not subside, about half will respond well to non-specific therapies such as massages, some physiotherapy procedures, or manual/manipulative techniques. If this does not happen, it is time for diagnostics. This starts with an examination by a specialist doctor, an orthopedic surgeon, a vertebrologist subspecialist, or a neurosurgeon, and in exceptional cases, a very experienced physiotherapist can perform it. The goal of this examination is to make a working diagnosis or hypothesis, which is the basis for further diagnostics. Based on your description of symptoms, it is reasonable to assume that you may have a disc deformation pressing on the surrounding soft tissues. As this deformation can be directed more to the left or right, the discomfort can be localized to only one side of the back. If the deformation is not severe, then the symptom is a defensive muscle spasm. If this assumption is correct, which needs to be confirmed by examination, an MRI of the spine would be recommended. Based on the MRI findings, a suitable treatment program is created, along with advice on physical activity that won’t further provoke the discomfort.
