[Vanishing Point]

Yeah, what part of your back ? I think the lay person uses the term "pinched nerve" to describe many problems that aren't a pinched nerve. One problem I've personally had recurring over the years is a spasm of my rhomboid muscle just towards the center of my shoulder blade towards my upper back. This thing spasms, hurts like all get out for a few days and then sometimes (in the past) would last as more of a dull gnawing pain for months or even years. I'd not like it but got used to the fact that I had chronic pain.

Then a few years back I got my wife to dig into my back in the area of the pain (when it was chronic). She found a cord of muscle, maybe the diameter of a large pen that was the tender area (and a 2 or 3 inches long). At my urging I asked her to work out that cord. It took her about 15 minutes and using everything including her elbows to work that cord until it was gone. It hurt real bad. I mean I was close to screaming the whole time she worked it but I didn't let her know or she probably would have stopped. After wards it ached and for 2 or three days it was sore like as if I had done a vigorous work out. Then the soreness went away and stayed away for a few years. It comes back now and then but I know what to do about it now.

You might have someone do a thorough feel around looking for any area of knotted muscle; it will feel like a cord about like a pencil. Then if that is found go to a message therapist for deep tissue massage or a physician who might want to inject that area with some lidocaine. Even though I'm a physician I'd advocate the massage because I think it's working on the problem a little more naturally.