The last few weeks I've been having pain on either side of my spine sort of wrapping around to the sides and under the rib cage area. It hums along and flares up independent of any exercise or other conditions.

The last two days it's been really bad so I finally went to see a doctor about it. He thinks it is unlikely to be kidney related, which was my main worry. (I'm having a physical next week so we'll run all kinds of tests then. This was just a walk-in visit because I didn't have a primary physician. Apparently with a walk-in you can't really do follow-up; so since I haven't got any seriously worrisome symptoms, getting me a doctor and putting it off for a week seems okay.)

Anyway! So this doctor's theory is that it is weightloss related. He said that losing the weight pretty much decompresses the spine. The muscles in the back then have to stretch longer than they were used to for years so you wind up with pain, much like children with growing pains. I had two different people measure me yesterday and sure enough, I'm now 5'6.5"! The theory certainly seems plausible to me. I've found other threads here on 3FC that talk about the lengthening with weightloss (not actual growing, let me be clear) but none have mentioned these pains. Has anyone else experienced this or know of anyone who has?

Boy I sure wish I had this, without the pain, I would live to stretch a few inches.

Sorry to hear about your pain but WOW 1.5 inches? That is fantastic. Hopefully it wont last too long. Shoot...I had a friend tell me the best thing for growing pains but I cant remember what it was. It was a natural remedy and safe for little kids.

Of course, your doctor would give the best advice. However, I do remember having similar issues when I started more intense exercise. It stayed for a week or 2 and then went away. Actually, until I read your post and had forgotten about it!

Thanks for replying, ladies. Yeah, I'm not seeing a downside to having gained an inch and a half either. And, hey, not that it's the be-all end-all but I got a free five pound boost on the bmi chart, which is a nice bonus.

Ennay, if you can remember the remedy I would love to hear it! So far the Aleeve he suggested in the interim isn't doing much. I tried a heating pad last night and it felt nice but didn't make an appreciable difference.

Free1, he did ask if I had changed anything regarding my physical activity and I honestly haven't. Still, it's nice to know about something similiar that did go away on its own.

Have you tried a chiropractor? I'm not usually one to recommend them (I hate chiro!), but for this it might be worth a shot. It does help kids sometimes with growth pain.

I AM a huge fan of acupuncture though and that might be another thing.

I go to a chiro and apparently he sees that a lot. I started at 5'7" and I'm up almost a 1/2 inch.

I already had arthritis in my back, so the pain back there is normal to me, lol...

It sounds also like gallbladder pain to me, though. When I get gallbladder pain, it starts in the back near the spine and ends up wrapping around my ribcage. That could also be weightloss-related since your body is processing all the junk stored in those fat cells. Hope it's just growing pains instead

I've shot up over an inch since starting to exercise and eat healthier, but I haven't experienced any pain.

I started out just under 5'2" (around 5'1.75") and ended up at just over 5'3"!

I actually have the opposite...I used to get a lot of lower back pain and now it's gone.

I hope your physical sheds some light on this...good luck!

I'm considering going to see a chiro if things haven't gotten better closer to the end of the month. It works better for me financially and the doctor wanted me to keep tabs on if increasing the anti-inflammatory dosage made a difference absent any other changes. Whether it does or doesn't will give my new doctor more information next week.

Debigulating, that's another possiblity that came up. Thing is, the only symptom I'm presenting is pain. I don't have any nausea or a fever or anything like that. I do have blood in my urine (a sign of potential kidney issues... don't know if that is also true for gallbladder) but that is likely because of midcycle bleeding, something I've been dealing with for many months now.

Thanks, Sontaikle! I'll probably post an update after the phsyical either way.

I dealt with a pain similar for 9 years before I got diagnosed with severe gall stones. I also didn't have nausea or a fever until the very end of that 9 years. Not saying that's what you have, but the reason I never considered my pain to be related to the gall bladder was exactly because I never had the symptoms in relation to eating, like they usually say, or any of the other symptoms, except the pain.

I hope it gets figured out soon!!!

I was going to say gallbladder as well.

KUP and GL!

I haven't experienced the pain, but I grew an inch, too! Glad I'm not crazy .

Good luck with your tests, I hope you figure out what it is. Nice "height" BMI drop as well.