My training has been stopped altogether the last two and a bit weeks.
Went to the gym a couple of Thursdays ago and worked out, no issues, felt good. Went to bed absolutely fine. Woke up the next morning and my back was in bits, to the extent that I could barely move. That was the case for about a week, more or less stuck in bed, and then across the last week it's (very) slowly eased up to the point that I had maybe 80% movement back, albeit it still wasn't right and I still couldn't lift anything, nor run, jump, etc. I felt like it was moving in the right direction, at least. And then yesterday I've gone to Ikea (first mistake) and grabbed a few bits, nothing heavy, but it seems like the act of picking up a few pretty light boxes has absolutely done me in again, and here I am struggling to get out of bed once more.
Now, I've pulled my back a few times before, mostly at the gym, and every single time I've felt it go instantly and therefore knew what I'd done. On those occasions it took maybe a week to a week and a half of resting (no gym, no lifting, etc) and it corrected itself. This time just feels different, in that I genuinely don't know what I did, I certaintly didn't feel anything go, and it's been over two weeks now and I'm more or less where I started. To say that I'm frustrated would be an understatement, and it's all made worse by the fact that I'm due to fly to Nepal to do the Everest Base Camp Trek in less than 5 weeks now. I had a training plan all laid out and this has killed it dead. Where I should be ramping up distance and testing myself with back-to-back hikes, I'm laid in bed covered in Tiger Balm, chewing on Ibuprofen. Along with the worry of whether that lack of training is going to catch up with me on the trek, the overriding concern is whether I'm even going to get to a point where I'm fit enough to go.
A friend of mine recommended a physio/chiropractor that they'd used when suffering with back pain a while back, and I'm due to see him for an initial assessment tomorrow. I'm praying that he clarifies what the issue is here, and gives me some level of reassurrence around recovery steps and timeframe, because up to now I feel like what I'm doing currently isn't working.