u/Am-i-your-light

Long shot, but I have had two orders cancelled by company and now out of options.

Does anyone know if there is anywhere selling them in Somerset? Preferably near Taunton/Wellington area.

Appreciate any support!

Posting to ask if anyone's experienced something similar, and honestly to hear from people who've come out the other side, because right now it feels endless.

Quick background: mid-30s, normally active, play 7-a-side and lift. I've had a bad ankle for years (osteochondral lesion + impingement) and had surgery on it in January this year.

Over the six months since, I'd been steadily getting back into lifting weights. The ankle stuff had left me walking a bit off for a long time. Recently I went back to football too, about 5 games in, and my back went. It had been niggling beforehand, but football tipped it over.

Here's roughly how it's gone:

Day 1-3: Pain came on either side of my spine, lower down. Mechanical, worse when I loaded it (standing still, sitting on hard surfaces, being upright too long), eased when I lay down. Thought it was just a strain that would settle.

Around day 4-7: Didn't settle. Started getting sharp pain shooting down into my thighs, worse on stairs and hills. The pain began shifting from either side of my spine down to two points above my bum, and across to my hips. Best relief I could find was lying face down with my legs off the end of the bed (basically taking all the weight off). Around this time I also started getting pain into my groin and testicle, which freaked me out.

The A&E detour: The groin/testicular pain got bad enough that I went to A&E, and I went in for both the back and the testicular pain. But because I've got family history of testicular cancer, they understandably focused on that most. Ended up in hospital for a full workup, blood tests, ultrasound, CT scan, urine tests, checking for testicular cancer, kidney stones, infection, the lot. Genuinely scary few days not knowing. Everything came back clear apart from a varicocele (a vein thing) they said was incidental. My bloods early on showed raised white cells with no clear cause (I expect it was from. Maybe intialy reaction to football) , which added to the worry, but repeat bloods were fine. The upshot was nothing sinister, but because the focus was on the testicular side, my back never actually got examined, even though looking back it was the real problem all along.

Week 2: Back worse, not better. Constant ache on top of the sharp stuff on bad days. Couldn't sit more than about 10 minutes. Bending forward, arching back, all made it worse. Leg spasms when it got really bad. Around this point I also started feeling really bloated, and getting muscle spasms, which added to the whole "what on earth is going on with my body" feeling. The pain kept moving around, which along with the leg and groin stuff had me worried it was something serious, but I kept checking and never had any of the red flag signs (no bladder/bowel changes, no numbness in the saddle area, and my leg strength was always actually there, it was just pain stopping me using it).

Now, almost 3 weeks in, and this is the worst it's been. It's genuinely gone downhill rather than settled.

Where I'm at:

Sitting on the toilet now triggers terrible back spasms and pain, to the point I have to lie down straight after. Something that basic has become a real ordeal.

When it's at its worst, moving my legs forward to walk hurts, it's the sharp pain blocking the movement rather than actual weakness, but it makes walking really hard.

I can't stand up straight, my body's kind of pulled to one side.

Constant ache underneath the sharp pain, and it flares badly any time I'm up too long or have to move.

It does still ease when I lie down and unload, which I'm holding onto as a good sign, but the baseline pain is higher than it's been the whole time.

I've been seen by an out-of-hours GP and an MSK specialist who examined my back. Diagnosis is mechanical lower back pain, with the leg pain coming from muscle spasm after I load it, not a trapped nerve, and the groin/testicle pain being referred from the same area (plus the varicocele). Likely my SI joint and the surrounding muscles, on the back of years of walking badly because of the ankle. On naproxen, diazepam, codeine and amitriptyline. Honestly the painkillers don't feel like they're touching it, though I know the amitriptyline takes a couple of weeks to build.

What I'd love to hear:

Has anyone been through mechanical / SI joint back pain like this, where it got worse before it got better?

How long before the worst of it started to ease?

Did anyone else get to the point where basic stuff like the toilet, walking, or standing straight became really hard? Did that pass?

Did anyone else get groin or testicular pain, or bloating and spasms, alongside their back problem?

If your back pain traced back to an old injury or years of walking differently, did addressing that root cause actually help?

What genuinely got you through the acute phase?

And honestly, any reassurance that this improves, because right now it's hard to picture the end of it.

Thanks for reading. It's been a grim few weeks and just writing it out helps.