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Ever since my back problems began—sometime in my 40s if memory serves—I’ve heard and read that sleeping in any position other than on one’s back is asking for trouble. And I pretty much heeded that advice.
Yet my recurrent back pain persisted, the payback, I assume, for all those years of contact sports—and likely a head butt or two from genetics.
By 2013, things were getting pretty bad. It wasn’t just poor sleep; now I was experiencing phantom pain radiating out to my hip and down my leg. Walking more than a hundred yards was too much to bear.
So in 2015 I had surgery at the Mayo Clinic to remove parts of one lumbar disk pressing on a nerve, and to stabilize a few malaligned vertebrae with four three-inch titanium screws. I walked away from that surgery a new man. But, as my surgeon cautioned me, even though I’d be free of the referred hip pain I’d still be a guy with a bad back.
After that, back sleeping seemed more sensible than ever. In fact, due to this surgery and a previous fusion in my cervical spine, any other position was quite uncomfortable.
Has something changed with my anatomy?
Or do I just have a screw loose?
DONE TO A TURN
Flash forward to 2022. For some inexplicable reason, I was starting to wake up quite often during the night with an urgent need to change position from back to side. As the year went along, the trend continued: less time on my back; more on my sides.
Then, just in the past few months, while I’m still spending most of the night side-sleeping, the “rotisserie” has been turning me another 90 degrees. I now find myself on my stomach several times every night. To my surprise, that’s now become the most comfortable position for me—at least for a few minutes until that yearn to turn sets in again.
I’m baffled. Has something changed with my anatomy? Is it my mattress going soft on me? Or do I just have a screw loose? What do you think? We'd love to hear of your tossings and turnings.
