# Concealed Carry - a pain in the back? No. Really.



## kansas_plainsman (May 9, 2006)

I've been carrying compact and sub-compact pistols in a high-ride OWB holster for more than a year now. During the day I hardly feel it, and it causes no pain.

But when I go to bed, (and lay down) I often have pretty serious pain high and behind the hip opposite my carry side. Recently it's getting more persistent, lasting into the morning hours.

Anyone experience this? Particularly, is this related to my method of carry?


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## scooter (May 9, 2006)

Between my L.E. years and CCW I have carried strong side hip for 20 years and have no problems like that here?


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## gene (May 6, 2006)

yes-yes-yes been carrying for 6 yrs. use 13 types of holsters made by some of top of line makers they all are pain in the neck to wear 10-12 hrs. a day.
wore paddle, iwb, pocket, belt never really like any of them.


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## Todd (Jul 3, 2006)

You need to carry another gun on the opposite hip to balance everything out. :smt033 

Could be your belt, the holster, your gait has changed to compensate for the extra weight on the one hip, or any other combination of things. Maybe a doc or chiropractor would be able to help.


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## kansas_plainsman (May 9, 2006)

I may have to try the medical route - last time I saw my doctor it was early in this process, and I didn't take it too seriously. But it hasn't gotten any better.

Not even sure it's gun related - I wear a heavy Galco belt made for carry, and the holsters I use are named-brands (the current one is a desantis) As I say, while I wear them it's no problem in any way. Very comfortable...

But I *could* be changing my gait; that sort of thing.

Oh well. Thought I'd ask the gurus around here first. After all, everything I needed to know I learned here in handgunforum.... :mrgreen:


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## Shipwreck (Jan 26, 2006)

I've had/have abdomin pain for 10 months now - on and off. I have had blood tests, a CT scan of my abdomin (where Y gotta drink nasty stuff) and a colonoscopy. They still don't know, but saw nothing wrong.

The doctor told me that they diagnose someone with irritable bowel syndrome when they can't figure it out - and that is what they did to me. I think I will be going back to my primary care doctor soon and insist on more tests.

Mine comes and goes - although it was worse earlier in 2006. The area is even sore to the touch, yet he claims in that spot, there is no organ but your colon...

ANyway - if I were U, I'd get it looked at.

I stopped carry on my belt for a few months to see if that was causing me a problem too - but that wasn't it.


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## big dutchman (Jan 9, 2007)

try switching your carry to the small of your back. i find it very comfortable to carry even full sized pistols back there, doesn't take much to get used to the new draw angle either. most of the time at work i carry my little SP101 back there and i literally forget it's back there.


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## tony pasley (May 6, 2006)

I know this will sound off the wall, but it very well could be your foot wear. I have to have good shoes or I will have back pain. Arch, ankle, support is very important.


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## kansas_plainsman (May 9, 2006)

Shipwreck said:


> ...The doctor told me that they diagnose someone with irritable bowel syndrome when they can't figure it out - and that is what they did to me...


Yep. The word 'syndrome' simply means that the patient presents with a set of symptoms which are co-incident enough to merit a name, but for which a cause has not been clearly identified.

It's not a dismissal of the patient's problem, but it does mean that medical science hasn't figured it out (yet). It frustrates the doctors about as much as it frustrates the patient.

My wife encounters IBS regularly. However (and I'm not a doctor), such a diagnosis is less meaningful if the doctor is not a specialist in the GI tract. I presume that you've seen a GI doctor?

BTW, you said you had a colonoscopy - not a sigmoidoscopy? Did they actually get a scope to the point of the pain?


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## Shipwreck (Jan 26, 2006)

Yes, I was sent to a specialist for the colonoscopy after the CT scan. He's supposedly a very good doctor. My mother had her first one about 2 months before me - she is 67. They found the beginnings of cancer, and it saved her life.

My pain is just about hip level. Its lower than the gall bladder area. He stated that the went all the way up to where the small and large intestines meet, and a little bit higher. So, he should have seen anything in my area of pain.

What is a sigmoidoscopy?


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## Shipwreck (Jan 26, 2006)

big dutchman said:


> try switching your carry to the small of your back.


Back in 2003, I lived in Dallas for a while. I slipped on some ice caused by a leaving fire hydrant at the apartment complex I was living in at the time. Thank god I had my belt holster on w/ my gun. If I had been carrying in the small of the back, I would be paralyzed now.

Its also very easy for someone to push U hard and for you to fall. I quit carrying that way after that. I used to carry that way ALMOST all the time until then.


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## kansas_plainsman (May 9, 2006)

Shipwreck said:


> ...What is a sigmoidoscopy?


Actually I should have said, 'flexible' sigmoidoscopy (and the spelling may be off) - it's a scope which can 'reach out and touch' just about anywhere in the intestine. Very long. Sometimes a colonoscopy is done with a coloniscope, a shorter, rigid device. (Again, not sure of spelling, and the Firefox spellchecker doesn't like it).

If the doctor who did it was a board-certified GI doc (and if you're seeing one of the fellows I know in your area, then he is) he used the right tool for the job, whatever it was.

I laugh as this comes to me, but I have had a sharp pain in my gut for as long as I've been married (and no, there is NO connection). Anyway, when I complain about it to my wife, (a GI doc), she expresses mild (dutiful) interest, but can't imagine what causes it. Let us call mine, "mysterious husband's periodic complaint" syndrome. :smt047


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