lower back injury and serious swelling

C

Clikc_speed

New member
today i was stepping down onto a chair and the chair broke and I fell onto my lower left back. I was in intense pain and couldn't get up for about a minute immediately following the injury. Once I got up, I had a small limp and it hurt a little bit to walk but it wasn't a big deal. about an hour after the injury i sat down. at this point there was no swelling. when i got up about 30-60 minutes later there was alot of swelling on the lower left side of my back. The swelling is about 5 inches long, 3 inches high, and it feels about an inch thick. I could barely walk and there was more pain when i did walk. I took some aleve and iced it for about an hour and little changed. Then i decided it would be best to try to walk it off and walked around for 20-30 minutes. after walking it stopped hurting so much and i was able to walk without a limp but the swelling remained.

what should I do about this? is it possible that i fractured my hip bone? also, its like a .5-1 hour trip to get to a doctor and its a big hassle so I'm only going to go if I really need to.

Thanks.
 
sorry about your fall,that had to be pretty awful at best. if i were you, mostly becasue of what really sounds like some pretty direct and profound type of swelling there in that lower left back(the "flank'), get to at least an ER for a good ultrasound of that kidney on that side and at least a CT of that whole area in the 'injury'. its just the location where you are describing the swelling really sounds like it is almost directly over where that L kidney is located. you REALLY do need to have that checked for ANY possible injury to it. either just contusion or something more in depth, just to have it ruled out or in as a part of your overall injury there. you just don't want to take any chances here with the internal organs if one could possibly have recieved a good hit/injury. a good ultrasound done on that kidney would show any abnormalities and also if the ureter is okay too.

at any rate, i personally think getting to that ER really needs to be done considering what you have described here. that profound swelling could just be a form of hematoma or a possible indication of kidney injury. that spinal needs some scanning too with at least a CT to check for fracture to any vertebrae or other injury as well. this is what i would be doing if this happened to me. hopefully everything is okay, but you just really NEED to find that out by seeing a doc and getting a look inside that area too. good luck with this, and please let me know how things are going. and what you find out, K? FB
 
i went to the emergency room and they cat scanned it and x-rayed it. they didn't find anything wrong except something on the right side of my pelvis but they said it probably wasn't significant.

a week later the pain on my side where the swelling was has gotten significantly better. a couple days after the injury though I noticed pain in my lower spine and tailbone. the pain had probably always been there but i just hadn't noticed it because it was overshadowed by the more intense pain of my side. however this pain has not gotten better and I think it may have even gotten worse. do things like this usually just take a long time to heal or is this abnormal? should I see a doctor?
 
i would seriously want to know about just what 'finding' was found in the pelvis that "probably" is not significant??? if it was mentioned or seen by a radiologist,it would HAVE to be 'something',ya know what i mean? if they don't know what that finding actually was, theey DO or you just do need to actually find out,just so YOU know. honestly, if you were having any pain or problemw within that lower spine at all before you took that fall,it could have very easily created a much bigger issue if there was an actual underlying spinal problem present. it just brought it more to the surface? since things are still going on back tere and along withthat 'finding with the pelvis they don't seem to care about,i would be seriously speaking to your own primary doc about referring you for a full spinal MRI with a contrasting agent. it would not hurt to just check out that spinal with an order to also check out that right side at the pelvis too. at least this way you obtain a much more in depth 'look' into that whole area where you are simply having any real symptoms/pain. but you DO need to find out what the finding was all about. trust me, what any given doc,speeacialist,or even the radiologist deems "significant or not significant really comes down to that individual docs overall knowledge and experience with what YOU actually have going on or shows up as a 'finding'. not all specialists or rads are ceated equal, not by a long shot. unfortunetly i have found this crap out the very hard ways. just get that whole area checked so YOU know. hopefully things are just fine in there,but you wont truely know without that little 'looksee' into the body. please keep me posted as to what you find out.

oh, by the by here, if you have not yet done so, always always obtain your very own copy of ANY and ALL test results no matter what the test is? these are really needed espescially with most scans? unfortunely not all docs always will tell you about EVERY true hard finding in any real scan, only what 'they" find pertinent. and once again, that does come down to their very own levels of knowledge and experience. another thing i found out the hard way just having like 17 MRIs and other scans over the past ten years or so? sick but true unfortunetly for us patients. FB
 
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