Migratory Pain

Last week, during a badminton match with some friends, my lower back muscle near the end of the spine suddenly seized up and I cannot bend down without acute pain. It's okay so long as I don't stretch that muscle, so at least I'm not crippled or hopeless. But still, it was very uncomfortable.

That was not the first occurrence. Sometime last June, I also suffered the same symptoms when I stood up -- yes, that's right, just standing up -- from an MRT seat. Over the following weeks, the pain then slowly migrated through my left butt cheek and down to the thigh, causing me to forgo my in-camp training.

Then in October it struck again while I was ferrying some cats from their cages in SPCA. However, strangely, the pain subsided by the evening and disappeared the next day, so this is either a sneak preview or something else altogether.

I did a Google search, and it seems that I'm suffering from sciatica. True to the symptoms, the pain does migrate, and right now my butt is rather sore and my thigh muscle feels stiff. I visited my family doctor (who gave me some painkiller and muscle relaxing drug the first time; the second time I didn't bother to see him), who advised me to go for an X-ray. There could be something wrong with my bones.

And the diagnosis from the X-ray was... I'm perfectly fine, skeletally speaking. So the pain I'm suffering is just some regular thing that drops by once every now and then, though the doctor told me this usually happens to older people...

I wonder how much the heavy load I've carried in the army is responsible for accelerating my age...