I have had back problems for several years, well problaly since I was about 12 yeara old after I went and seen a specialist. Went and had MRI' s done and all it showed was to small bulges in my lower back not for sure on the location and alot of arthritis and my age was only 26 at the time of the MRI, the DR. told me I had more arthritis than most 70 year olds with arthritis in the back and they don' t know why. And after see my DR after the results he just basicaly said you are going to have to live with it because the bulges are should not be a problem and gave me some arthritis meds. My pain was in my lower back, down my legs and groin musclue pulls. The groin musclue pulls and tears I have has since I was around 12 years old but the DR' s always blamed it on sports. Well to make I long story short I didn' t like what my DR said so I went to a specialist in St. Louis MO and he looked at my MRI and said the Bulges were not bad and should cause no problems but said I had a " great amount of arthritis" but that also was not the problem. He checked me out and it turns out to be my sacrial bone (tailbone area) was more less loose and the legiments were stretched causing it to shift my hips and pull my groin musclues and butt (for lack of being able to spell the other words) musclues and putting presser on the part of the spain above the sacrium and causing my leg pain. For I long time before finding out what was actually wrong I took Ibeprophin(sp), asprin, Precription drugs and anything else I could think of to ease the pain and all that done for me was mess up my stomach and give me alot of acid reflux I quit taking all meds unless the pain is bad and I can' t walk at all because now every time I take some thing for pain I get reflux so bad I can' t stand it. I am NO dr but I would avoid meds as much as possible. Now I see a ciropractor(sp I don' t spell well as if you couldn' t notice) every few months or as the pain calls for, The back specailist is the one who told me to find a good ciropractor were I live and see if he can help after I got done seeing his phyical theropist. It took me over 6 years!!!! to fine out what was really wrong and I still have pain to this day but I want to avoid surgery but like aurthor I can only sleep about 6hrs a night with having alot of pain but my problems are really not the bad compared to others but when it is happing to you it is what you have to deal with not the other person. I hope you find releif and don' t give up until you do.