I spoke to a fit mid-50s bloke this week. Runs, gyms, no medical history worth mentioning.
He had literally just bent down and his back went. Ended up on all fours. No warning. No sense anything catastrophic was about to happen.
He expected me to treat him, perform some miracle and send him on his way.
I told him not to come in.
You simply can't rehab or manual therapy your way out of this. My advice was straightforward: anti-inflammatories, "active rest": sit, walk, lie, repeat. No stretching. Get the thoracic spine moving. Lie on a foam roller. Accept poor sleep and expect tomorrow morning to feel grim. Then, if you behave, it'll start to turn.
He rang the next day. That's exactly what happened.
He was impressed. Also slightly baffled that I hadn't "done anything."
So he checked me.
ChatGPT broadly agreed. Gemini went heavy on movement and stretching. The CSP guidance sat somewhere in between.
Three sources. Three flavours. Same problem.
AI isn't the white knight on the white charger. It's a very confident blender of averages and with acute back pain, the detail matters enormously.
How do I know?
Because that bloke was me.