Early morning back pain

Hi. I'm hoping someone out there can give me some advice on where to
turn next.

I've been suffering from back pain for 2 years now. Although some
'features' have changed, the one constant is that it comes on in the
early morning while I'm in bed, but gets easier or disappears during
the day. I had a really bad spell about a year ago, when I would
regularly be woken up at 4am (or thereabouts) with chronic pain in my
lower back that could only be eased by getting up. I used to resort to
falling asleep in my chair - lying down was just too painful. Sometimes
I could barely move to get out of bed for the pain. Needless to say I
became exhausted, and this didn't help me cope with the pain. I also
often had a sharp pain from my back to my leg that was painful when I
walked on it. The thing I found strange was that once i was up and
about after about 30 minutes / an hour of moving around, the pain would
ease dramatically, even the sharp pain down my legs. It was almost as
if my back ceased up over night. I sleep on my side and have tried
different beds & pillow arrangements.

I started seeing a physio who said that my problems stem from bad
posture and inflexibility. He gave me some exercises which really
helped. I started swimming every week, and now things are much, much
better. I no longer have the sharp pain down my leg. However, I just
can't seem to shift the early morning pain - it doesn't wake me up at
4am that often any more, but my back is always very sore in the
morning, and it doesn't let me have any lie-ins past about 7am. At
weekends, I usually wake up early, and doze, being very aware of the
pain, but too tired to do anything about it, until it becomes
unbearable.

Once I'm up and about, I rarely have pain during the day, unless it's
been a particularly active day, and my back is just tired - this is
just "ordinary" back ache, though, and different to the pain i get in
the mornings. I know there are lots of things I could try but I'm at a
loss as to where to start. The physio i saw seemed surprised that i had
this pain coming on in the mornings - he couldnt' explain why it would
happen like that. Has anyone experienced the same problems? Does anyone
have any practical advice?

Many thanks for reading this.

V

.

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