Thoracic Arthritis

A little over a week ago the muscles in my upper back started getting stiff. I tried stretching and rolling to no avail, so I went to the chiro for an adjustment. Got a few hours of relief, but then things really started to turn for the worse.

Starting that night I couldn’t lay down, and had to sleep in the recliner, most of the time with a heating pad on my back. Still felt like a muscle spasm, so I was trying to do all the usual stuff to alleviate that with no luck. Deep tissue massage left me feeling pretty decent for a few hours, then I was back in excruciating pain. Finally broke down Sunday and went to urgent care. The PA that saw me felt confident it was muscular, so she prescribed muscle relaxers and prescription strength ibuprofen, neither of which worked at all. By this point I was getting maybe 2 hours of sleep per night, in 15-20 minute increments.

Yesterday my wife finally forced me to go to an orthopedic urgent care, and after a quick X-ray the doctor showed me the arthritis in my upper spine and prescribed prednisone. He said it shouldn’t really be an issue going forward, but if it started to bug me down the road to call and he’d send in another round.

Anyway, this got way more long winded than I intended, but I was wondering if any of y’all here had ever dealt with this issue. I know there’s no “cure”, but what should I be doing to try to keep from dealing with flare-ups in the future?