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No. Chronic back pain is not normal. Acute back pain so bad you pass out also not normal.
Occasional back pain, I think is normal - over my more than half a century I've thrown my back out about 4 times and it hurt for a few days each time. Then went away. That seems more normal.
After checking for physical health issues, ergonomics, stress, posture, etc, take a look at better shoes. If you ever feel like your heels often hit the ground hard when you walk, and especially if you more often feel pain after having carried something heavy, the impact on your spine might be bigger than you think even if you don't feel it at that moment. Better shoes (and posture, etc) reduces the impact significantly.
Sounds like you have abnormal issues. Guessing you have some issues with your discs.
This video helped me a lot.
Basically your lower back near the spine doesn’t get a ton of blood to heal itself. I’ve been doing back bends once or twice a week and my low back pain went away after about 6 months.
Once doctor rules out kidney, cancer, and spinal issues, see a physiotherapist. Before anyone says chiropractic, it’s a scam.
Chiropractors and acupuncturists are grifters
So many people think chiros are legit.... it's fucking infuriating that shit is still around.
They have chiropractors for horses....yes a massive animal that's stupid muscular and stands 95% of its life. People are duped into thinking a 200lb or less human can "adjust" it's body...
It also annoys me that my insurance groups chiro together with physio so people might think that they’re alternatives to each other. I had a colleague who said “physio just gives you exercises/homework while chiro fixes you on the spot”
I also have issues with the fact that major pharmacy brands like Walgreens and CVS put homeopathic remedies right alongside real meds. Make sure to actually read the labels on medicines, because lots of them are pure placebo. Zicam is an extremely popular cold medicine that claims to shorten the duration of a cold or the flu by like 50%, and it is completely homeopathic. There are lots of homeopathic labels scattered throughout the pharmacy, so checking the labels is extremely important.
If you ever see something on the ingredients label like “{ingredient} X6” then that means that ingredient has been diluted 6 times. Homeopaths claim that more dilution makes the med stronger, like how fresh water is better able to dilute salt water. But many are so diluted that there likely isn’t any of the medication remaining.
I had chronic, persistent back pain in my twenties. Less severe back pain in my thirties. The first, I linked to job stress. I took a three week vacation and came back and noticed my back tensing up from stress in the first fifteen minutes that I was at work. The second, I link to ergonomics. Once I got an adjustable desk (for occasional standing) and combined that with my wonderful Aeron chair, my back pain ended. The adjustable desk that I loved at my old job wasn't as useful as I'd suspected: I just had a shitty chair at work.
I don't think persistent pain is normal (I’m in my forties with no pain). You should try seeing a doctor for a pass over to physical therapy. Caution: I thought working through pain in a workout was a positive and fucked myself up worse in PT. Tell your trainer if you're hurting when working with them. Also, they may not be able to help you identify environmental factors that they can't observe. No one knew that my job was causing tension but me. No one knew that my chair was hurting me but me (and only after the fact!). It might take a lot of introspection to locate external factors causing your pain.
Stretching can help a good amount. I can touch my toes because I used to stretch so much to lessen back pain. Do research to make sure you aren't using improper technique that will cause problems (like asking a PT person). I hope you have good insurance and can go that route. Good luck!
You may have herniated discs. It's not super common at 30 but it's definitely not uncommon. It's more common the older you get but many young people get these. Depends on genetics and activity. You should go to a neurologist or orthopedist and tell them what's happening.
OP, it sounds like a herniated disc to me. Especially when you said "put on socks" (it's worse in the morning, and forward bends are bad?)
When things get bad (or anytime), go lie on your stomach, and if you can, push yourself up into "cobra" pose. If that helps, you almost certainly have a herniated disc. And that pose kind of un-herniates it.
You need an mri to officially diagnose it. Might find one for under $300.
Learn Stuart McGill's big three, the McKenzie press up (mentioned above), take more walks, and maybe get an inversion machine.
That ain't normal nor common, if you can go see a doctor. Passing out from pain is definitely not a regular situation.
You're confusing "normal" with "common". Pain is never normal.
What definition of normal are you using, then? I mean, OP's thing definitely is neither, but lots of things can trigger pain, even chronically.
Tall desk jockey, heavy walker. Not trying to diagnose, but I learned from experience that weak abdominal activation caused over compensation in the lower back to an extreme degree. Went from zero back pain, to plenty during covid, back to relatively little. Yoga, walking and lifting to improve core strength helped. Could it be something like that?
Well, I mean I guess after a long day or working really hard it can get a little achey and-
But my lower back will randomly act up, sometimes it gets so bad that I about black out from the pain.
No. Holy shit, no. Not normal at all. Go see a doctor ASAP. If you're ever in debilitating pain for no obvious reason, that is a colossal flashing "go see a doctor now" sign.
Let me just say right up front that any pain you have that's anywhere near the black-out level is extremely not normal. And I say that as someone who has lived with chronic lower back pain for 20 years (of varying severity, from 'Huh that's kinda uncomfortable' to 'holy shit it's time to take all of the meds and lay down.' I've never been anywhere near black-out levels of pain, the most I've gotten is back pain so bad it makes me sick to my stomach. Go see an orthopedist, they will find the source of the problem, and then probably refer you to a physical therapist and/or pain management specialist.
Sorry. I laughed from your comment. Doctors tell women blacking out from menstrual pain is perfectly normal.
Didn't mean to distract from your message, you're absolutely right.
That's crazy. Though I mean as a guy I have a lot more experience with lower back pain than menstrual pain so I couldn't speak to what's normal for the latter. But near-blacking-out from any kind of pain seems extremely no bueno.
I'm not a doctor nor a woman, but I think it's unacceptable to get blackouts from menstrual pains. To think that a doctor would just dismiss you like that, is even more unacceptable. It's 2025, not 1925.
A doctor will order scans of the area to see if there's anything obvious requiring surgery, otherwise a physio or similar should be able to provide you some exercises to strengthen the body. You could probably just take yoga, pilates or calisthenics classes as long as you don't exacerbate things.
You don't mention doing any exercise.
Probably need to go to the doctor anyway bruv. I'm 30 and I am not hit with severe back pain. I am hit with mild to moderate pain that eases off throughout the day in response to overexerting myself or sleeping wrong.
Not normal at all. See a doctor. You could have pulled muscles or something like that or you may be like me and have degenerative disc disease.
See a doctor, it could be any number of conditions.
I’ll mention multiple myeloma only because I have myeloma, and although I had long-bone pain and lytic lesions, I was lucky that I didn’t have back pain.
Could be posture, especially if you work an office job or something. I used to have pretty bad back and neck pain, then when they sent us home during the pandemic, all my pain just went away.
Do you have any hypermobility? Even in your fingers?
You thinking EDS?
I think hEDS is just when mutations in the TNXB gene are extreme enough to warrant a diagnosis, yes.
The 20% of the pop who is hypermobile have milder mutations, but can suffer all the same from the downsides of hypermobility, and benefit from targeted interventions.
wtf no,not normal i m way over 30, and never had such symptoms
go see a doctor , not normal
30 isn’t old, but I had pretty bad back pain in my 30’s that mostly went away as I got older.
If it’s acting up I’ll take ibuprofen right away. 400mg for a few days before I call a dr.
I keep prescribed muscle relaxers to take if it’s bad but those really knock me out so only as a last resort.
Usually after a week it’s all cleared up. It happens maybe 1-2x per year.
It’s never been “I might pass out from the pain” bad though.
I started experiencing this after 30. In my case it's back muscles tightening up, because of bad posture that lead to the weakening of the core muscles which put too much strain on the back.
Got shown some excercises and got better after a while. Got back every once in a while, but usually I managed to get it under control.
Just got back again and wouldn't get away for weeks now. Sounds a lot like what you have. I'm going ti schedule the doctor again, I recommend you do the same. This shouldn't be normal.
Can you name the exercises you were shown, or link to a video or article explaining them?
I don't know if this could be a case of "what's good for me might be bad for you" but bad posture must be pretty common in today's world.
Did your back pain get as bad as OP's?
I'm younger and don't have a serious injury, so I wouldn't say this would fix back pain for someone with an actual injury.
But for me, back pain was fixed with better posture and muscle strengthening too.
I think the biggest thing was focusing on engaging the muscles supporting the lower back. Glutes and core specifically.
And for posture, just be conscious about keeping the body in alignment in a way that feels comfortable, not "sitting up straight"
I would if I could. A plank and a side plank were one of them. Other than that, no idea as I was shown the excercises, but was never really given names. And even then, I don't live in English speaking country so might not be useful anyway.
It was mostly about strenghtening the core and stomach muscles, without straining the back much.
Not sure about pain levels. First time around, it was quite bad. I just suddenly couldn't move, everything hurt so bad. Not quite blacking out pain but it was bad. I first did like one or two weeks of intensive back muscle stretching to be even able to do the other excercises. Currently the pain is not bad, but it is making my life dificult a bit as it blocks some movements.
Pain is never normal but back pain is pretty common. Sometimes it's a past injury that's the cause. For most people though, it's often caused by weak back muscles or over exertion. Or both.
Might try some light yoga focusing on the back, but you should definitely go see a doc. A chiropractor might be helpful as well.
you are not supposed to have any pain at all
Some form of exercise are better for your back than others.
Pain isn't normal, and 30 is quite young so talk with a doctor, get a couple of physiotherapy session, and find a sport helping your back (and a whole strategy)
I'm almost 40, tall, not in great shape, have bad posture, and have two misaligned disks in my lower back and even my back pain isn't that bad, so I would say that no it's not normal. You should definitely get that checked out.
I had really bad back pain when I switched to an office job, which kept going for like 4 years. I finally went to the physio and after a few trial and errors she discovered the issue was in my core strength. I was exercising and generally active, but because I wasn't engaging my core properly that was just leading to more back pain.
She taught me how to engage my core properly and a few really simple exercises for strengthening, and my low back pain is almost entirely gone now.
Go to the doctor or a physiotherapist. If it's not a medical condition then it's most likely just related to your lifestyle and can be improved with some changes.
Editing to add I'm also in my 30s.
Separate note: On my 30th birthday actually I did have a separate issue with my side where the pain came on suddenly. I did go to the doctor for that one and was told essentially "you're just old", but he wasn't totally wrong on that one because it was literally that I had gotten drunk and fallen asleep on a very broken uncomfortable couch that had fucked my side right up. What you're describing doesn't sound like one of these dumb 'old people' injuries though.
Plus one for PT: my partner went from unable to walk to walking up and down stairs thanks to PT in a pretty short time. She had knee pain.
Your normal doctor will not have a good answer for you. You need to see a spinal specialist. Or a specialist for your back. No an x-ray will not show you what’s wrong. You will need something better like a MRI. Better to go and know then not go and regret it.
If you need that spine surgery get it. I wish I had mine sooner. Most people don't need surgery as physical theorpy fixes it. However when a few weeks wasn't showing any improvement they sent me for a mri and that found something that surgery was needed before it parralized me. (Not cancer but still a growth)
hopefully you have the same pains as everyone else but only a doctor can figure out the rare exceptions.
I ended up at the doctor with severe back pain at 22. It was so bad I had to call a friend to help me get dressed. Had physiotherapy for quite some time. It'll come back to haunt me at some point because I have mild scoliosis.
How tall are you? If the answer is yes, then it's common
Go to your doctor, take the meds they give you and do the exercises and you'll feel better. Then focus on building back strength so that it doesn't happen again.
This is one of the scenarios where oats and squats actually do help
In addition to spine and muscle issues, there can be other things going on like an enlarged prostate or other swelling that pinches nerves which hurt in the lower back area instead of where the cause is located. Less common than sitting too much, but is another possibility beyond spine or back muscle issues.
I was surprised to find out that could feel like a kidney stone!
Yoga helps tremendously.
Can also make it way worse if there is a problem with the spine.
Yoga was the start of my wife’s back problems. Too much flexibility and not enough strength.
I've had bad episodes of back pain off and on since I was 11. I'm now 59. I have seen my doctor on many occasions and I'm just told to try to get more exercise. I guess I just put up with it, then
