Back injury - Urgent care? Minor injuries? Watch and wait?

[puglady]

Last night I fell down the stairs. Wooden, no carpet. I'm pretty sure I've damaged my coccyx, can hardly walk, hurts to stand/sit/lie.

Is it worth going to get checked? Would I need an x-Ray? Or shall I just take it easy? Ibuprofen and co-codamol not helping at all

If it is a coccyx injury then it doesn't need any particular treatment. You wouldn't usually end up with an x-ray as it's (a) a lot of radiation to direct unnecessarily at your pelvis (b) coccyx fractures are difficult to see on x-ray and (c) it doesn't make any difference anyway. If broken, it will usually feel much more comfortable over the next 2 weeks but possibly still hurt up until 6-8 weeks. In the meantime, it is very uncomfortable and sitting down is a particular problem...

The difficulty is knowing whether or not this is a coccyx problem or an injury somewhere else in the spine. That would really require someone to poke your back and work out which bit is actually sore. If there's any doubt or you are worried then I'd probably call 111 in the first instance. Some minor injuries units (etc) won't see people with "back injuries" but the 111 operators ought to know where best to send you.

agree with pp.
call 111 they might send you to a&e for assessment, as poking/prodding might be needed.
painkillers not helping is not good, though.

Yep, you need to be palapated to make sure it is a simple but painful self stabilising coccyx injury (could even be a strain) and not something more horrible.

Thank you for the advice - it's worse today so I did as suggested and called 111. They wanted to send an ambulance. I declined but will pop up to A&E to get checked over.

Thanks again