The Rebound Effect

Yesterday was probably the best I’ve felt in a long while. I could move quite well. That alone should have been enough to feel cautiously optimistic about where things are headed, but the body has its own logic, and it does not always align with hope.

I woke up this morning with very sharp pain in the lower back. Not the dull ache I’ve grown accustomed to over the months. This was different, more insistent, more present. I explored it with pressure and can identify it as exactly around the scar site. That said, the pain can be felt through the glute muscles, hips and even through the groin, making it seem like it comes from all over. But when applying pressure, it completely centralises to the lower back central area.

This is what I’ve learned to call the rebound effect. A good day, followed by a bad one. The body seems to punish optimism.

There was no extra exertion yesterday, which makes this particularly frustrating. The only thing that directly links back to this morning’s pain is Wednesday’s pool activities and possibly stretching in the pool. I thought the water was helping. I thought gentle movement in that supported environment was part of the solution. Perhaps it was, and the price for yesterday’s relative freedom is today’s sharpness. Or perhaps I pushed harder than I realised, and my nervous system is now reminding me of the boundaries I keep trying to negotiate.

Walking is difficult. Lying is painful. Sitting is uncomfortable. There is a particular cruelty in having no good position, no posture that offers relief. The hours compress into a kind of endurance test, each minute marked by awareness of discomfort rather than distraction from it.

I am trying not to catastrophise. One bad day does not erase the progress of the past weeks. But it does complicate the narrative I was building for myself. It suggests that recovery is not linear, is not something you can manage through better decisions or more disciplined stretching. It is messier than that. Some days you move well, and some days your body decides to remind you exactly where it is broken and which tissues are still irritated.

The real question is what to do with this information. Do I avoid the pool next time? Do I stop stretching? Do I accept that any activity, no matter how gentle, carries the risk of a flare that will cost me a day or two of functionality? Or do I accept that this is the terrain now, and occasional setbacks are part of the landscape I am navigating?

For today, the answer is simpler. I manage the pain. I find the least uncomfortable position. I wait for the sharp edges to soften. Tomorrow, or the day after, I will reassess. But right now, in the middle of an 8/10 day, the best I can do is sit with it and remember that yesterday was real too.