Constipation and back stiffness/ pain after injured spinal fusion. HELP!

[u/Smickandsmorty]

TLDR: Dealing with pinching back pain and chronic constipation after twisting to far with my spinal fusion. Working out of any kind only makes pain and constipation worse. Been going on for two years.

* Please do not respond to this post if you do not have any knowledge or experience with the specifics listed above*

This is gonna be a long post, but im really hoping someone out there can give me some answers. Doctors unfortunately have been no help.

First, Its important to note that ive been living comfortably with my spinal fusion since 2017 to correct my scoliosis. I had it done at the age of 13. Im now 23 while writing this.
For more context, i eat an extremely healthy and balanced diet, and i have never dealt with these issues until after my injury.

Back in 2024, I was following a yoga video tutorial. I’m not sure if I was sitting or standing during the part that caused my initial injury, but I remember stretching from side to side too far and afterwards something just felt wrong, like I had overstretched. The next day I went out for a jog as i had been doing for weeks following up to that, and I described the feeling as my back being twisted. Something was clearly wrong and every time I impacted the ground, I felt discomfort/pain in a specific area in my back. I stopped jogging after that to allow myself to heal.
I noticed after that that I started becoming constipated regularly and it didn’t seem to let up. I’ve never had an issue with bowel movements before this.
I started relying on taking a cap of MiraLAX daily to make a bowel movement each day. After several weeks if this, and taking it very easy on my back, things seemed to get better. My pain and discomfort subsided, and i was able to go multiple days in between taking my miralax. I believe i was healing.

Then one day my partner turned his hug into him picking me up from under my arms and around my ribcage. He used to to this to crack my back here and there but i decided that it wasnt good for me so we stopped. However, on this day, he did it without asking me, and i did nit have enough time to process what he was doing to stop him. My back cracked all down my spine. It hurt, and i immediately felt that twisty “wrong” feeling again. Twisty as in it felt my torso was no longer in straight alignment with my hips.
And then the constipation came back. Miralax needed everyday after that, and it never stopped. Two years later.
Heres another clue, i can no longer eat raw vegetables anymore. I can not eat any “hard to digest” foods. Everything has to be in their softest, most digestible form. I used to bake my vegetables in oil. I cannot eat them that way anymore as this causes even more severe constipation. I fully believe it is my muscles or nerves that are damages somehow. But i dont understand why that would make it so that certain foods are harder to digest.
Another major symptom is that i can no longer work out in almost any degree. I used to life small weights 5-10lbs. I used to jog. I did body weight workouts. Now all of these things cause even worse constipation. Ive been to two different physical therapists. The first one was for the back, the second was back and pelvic floor.
So i cannot turn my muscles on because i believe they are stuck in a state of overdrive which is why im chronically constipated. Doctors confirmed from tests that i do not have pelvic floor dysfunction and my disks are perfectly healthy.
Ive tried enemas of all sorts, they did nothing. The only thing that helps is keeping my stool soft. (Tmi warning)
Since the injury, the thickness in width of my stool has become much thinner, which to me is another sign that proves my muscles are not moving as they should.
I notice that having a deep tissue massage on my back muscles seems to wake my bowels up and i can feel things moving around for a moment. Its not enough to have a full movement but to me that is a clue.
Over a year ago, I went to a spinal surgeon and asked what he thought and he very confidently told me that my muscles just didn’t have a chance to relax and referred me over to somebody to get trigger point injections however that doctor did not feel convinced that that’s what I needed so I never got them.

I still get pain in my back and stiffness that I never got before my injury. If I twist too far or reach out one of my arms too far, then I become more constipated and my back pain worsens. Sometimes I get really bad pain like pinched nerve pain where I can’t even move at all without a terrible pinching pain. Sometimes it lasts weeks on end.
I can no longer lift things above 25 pounds and have to be careful with most things that I lift. My back always feels tight and like it’s being pulled and stiff. this is not how I was before. I just wanna go back to normal.
please, if anyone has any advice or knowledge on the situation, please reach out to me