Lumbar compression/extension pain

Hi!

I never had even a tiny back problem in my life, hence I overlooked early signs..

Poor sitting posture
Last 12 months I’ve had mild intermittent back pain from "sliding down" in office chair, suspending the lower back between butt and mid-back. Resolved within an hour by improving posture. This got slightly more frequent last months. I decided to start to train my back, as I’ve been off weight lifting for a while. 2 years earlier I used to deadlift and squat ~100kg, but since then done mostly running, 3-5 times a week.

Injury
So I started to deadlift 2x14kg dumbbells, very low weight. Problem was, I did this at a day my back had above mentioned sitting pain.
Had mild pain during exercise, which felt as the typical sitting-pain. Next day I had first time pain in the morning, thought I could run it off, but quickly understood this was more serious type of “compression pain”. Sharp lumbar pain on each step. Pain also when twisting/turning in certain directions.

Symptoms and Recovery
First 2 days rather bad, unable to do a single situp (from bed in morning), or a single bodyweight “deadlift”.
Improved on day 3, 4 and 5.
Pain could be triggered easily by hyperextension. Positive stork test, on both legs, slightly more on one, though pain was moderate.
Started walking on day 4.
Started light jogging on day 6 (2km). I do forefoot strike, so it actually feels as less impact than walking.
Increased light jogging to 3-4km, every day.
Day 4, 5, 6 and 7; Was standing allmost all day. Instead of sitting. As I thought posture would be benificial.
Started intermittent 4x10 min decompression from day 7, by laying head down on a 20 deg decline bench.
Symptoms slowly faded. Progress seemed good.

I thought I had a mild disc bulge, but now unsure, as the symptoms are in extension, not flexion. Though the worst days, the symptoms are on simple compression (walk/run).

Relapse
From day 16 forward, I started more active light exercises, as progression felt very good. Though I kept strict posture.
After a few days of a bit too fast progression of exercises, including overhead press and hip thrust (avoiding extension) every day for several days, mild lumbar stings returned. Progress went back to about day 3-4. I suspect the hip thrust may been the problem, due to it's direct shear force on the spine.

Self diagnosis

Now I wonder if it can be spondylolysis. I couldn’t first imagine that I had broken anything. But as I read about it, it's described as often asymptomatic, so perhaps it could be. Though I’m not able to reproduce any pain when pushing on the spinous process.

Basically symptoms are mild except for the initial 2-3 days of slight immobility. And all symptoms disappear within some days. But as shown, relapse occurs, so healing is not done. But now I’m unsure if I should continue running or not. It seems unlikely running has triggered any symptom relapse, as I ran from very early on during first recovery phase. Probably it's from hip thrust (shear force) or overhead press, causing loaded extension.

If it's a stress fracture, it's an important window of opportunity to heal I guess. Though it's hard to understand to stop running when it produces no symptom whatsoever. On the other exercises, I plan to stay off for 6 weeks, then advance slowly.

Log
Adding a data sheet with my injury log. I’m not sure of the source of the pain, but my best guess from what I can feel is that there is a deeper more centralized type of pain which is triggered on the few worst days, by compression and extensions; Feels like could be a disc. Then there are milder pains more close to the skin, and some a bit lower, so perhaps facet joint and/or sacral. These are what I feel more on the less symptomatic days.

http://i.imgur.com/oBLEaUU.png

I used an office chair with far tilt (135 deg), as that deloads most of the lumbar compression force. That created night/morning mid-back/rib-cage pain from excessive deloading (like the astronauts). But that’s totally unrelated, and was just muscular pain.

Healing Protocol
Currently I'm standing most of the day, as I speculate this keeps the most ideal posture for healing of either disc or spondylolysis. (?)
Trying to keep my back straight as much as possible, neither doing flexion or extension exercises or stretches.
I don't think running is bad. It's forefoot, I got a sensitive strike. And it produces no symptoms.
I feel I need to keep the back active in some way, and running is simply axial pumping, which probably aids metabolism.
Maybe this protocol will "stiffen" up my back, but that's perhaps what I need, since I've overstretched it with poor sitting.


Thanks if you got this far!

Would appreciate any advice on possible diagnosis and healing.
I’m not able to get any scans the first weeks, due location. So I'll have to go by self-diagnosis.

If it is a stress fracture (spondylolysis), does the symptoms match, that most pain and immobility subside within 3 days?