I don't have one but poor Pani does. It makes everything, even getting out of a chair and especially getting in and out of the shower, very difficult and you need a 10 point plan to break the smallest of activities into tiny little steps 
I know Chrissie has suffered muchly in the past in similar fashion.
Any other 'hard-facts' backs' and any tips on pain relief and best strategy for recovery?
IE, should you rest it a lot or keep gently moving? Resting sounds right as surely the pain is a signal not to move about, but then again the pain is worse I hear after a night in bed or a long time in a chair.
I haven't had it myself, quite a few people at my work have done. The medical advice seems to be to keep moving but I distrust medical advice after treatments I have had for other things. They seem averse to anyone having nice rests in general.
We got special occupational health people in for some of them and they have special bad back chairs which are like a dining chair but with arms and a head rest. I've sat on them occasionally when we have been short of chairs and I couldn't get comfortable with a good back.
I don't know if they make special bad back sofas or tv chairs.
The work chairs were also very dear (£250) just for one chair.
I've had this 3-4 times over the years and I still don't understand why it happens. This time I was in the shower (my shower is over the bath) when I simply reached for a towel and felt someone hit me in the back with what felt like a baseball bat. I ended up sitting down and genuinely wondering how I was going to get out.
It was quite funny (after the fact) the way I had to manoeuvre so carefully to escape. 
That was yesterday morning and I am mostly okay now, but I'm still using a walking stick to stand up and sit down to avoid putting any strain on whatever it is I injured. I'm glad I had that as for most of the first day I needed it to cross the room.
I saw a kind of chair for backs once for people to use to avoid bad posture at their desk. It looked like a stool but with a shaped bit for your shins and knees to press on. It looked terribly uncomfortable
I found a picture!
Creature has every sympathy with you Pani, the seemingly most stupid thing can put his back out and then it sometimes takes ages to mend itself.
A guy at one of my work places had one of those funny stools. He said it was very comfortable, although I couldn't see it myself. I wonder how it was designed and who did it?
Hope you get better soon, Pani.
Poor Pani, Get Well Soon.
It is a problem because if you were doing something silly like trampolining or bungee jumping when your back went, we could say don't go trampolining or bungee jumping again. But you can't not have a shower or reach for towels ever again can you.
I injured my back when I was a teenager. It used to go out frequently, and has actually gotten a bit better with age [the only part of me that has improved rather than gone downhill] such that it goes out rarely now.
Now if you are desperate you can try this, which I have done: lie face down on the floor on a beach towel. Get someone who loves you enough to torture you to apply ice directly to the skin over all the part of your back which hurts. I mean rub the skin gently with an ice cube. If you do this, your back will ache fiercely until the skin goes numb.
Then get up very very carefully and go to bed.
Next day you may find you are back to normal, or at least significantly better.
This is the poor man's version of acupuncture.
Thanks all. 
I'm quite a lot better today I'm glad to say. Seized up a bit overnight, but now I'm moving about fairly normally (if carefully)
Asy, that's an interesting treatment. I wonder if it's the cold that helps or the rubbing near it. Pain is just an alarm signal running through nerves, after all. Perhaps it 'distracts' the system from the original pain signal.
Unfortunately I don't have anyone available to apply it - at least not today. I am however thinking of using it as a line with my next door neighbour 
I do have an alternative way of applying cold/pressure to my back! I could go outside and try and cross the road. 
There has been heavy snow overnight here (and probably most of the UK from what I've heard)
What is supposed to happen is you break this cycle:
pain so you tense the muscles
muscle tension increases damage
damage increases pain
the serious icing may also reduce local inflammation significantly
It is quite reasonable to start the treatment by swallowing a tall glass of single malt, strictly as a muscle relaxant. 
The ice treatment doesn't seem to work unless you get the skin rather numb to the touch. I suppose you could make a crushed ice pack in a thin bed sheet upon which you lie, as a solo treatment.
Might be more fun to make a pass at a good looking neighbor though.
[with the availability of abundant snow, maybe just scoop some up for the bed sheet ice pack, heh.]
at the single malt. I wonder if my doctor will prescribe that on a regular basis.
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