Anybody experienced anything similar?
January 2014. My neighbor put her Christmas tree out for pick-up a few days early because she was going out of town. We had wind storms, and her tree kept getting blown on the street when she was already gone. I kept returning it. After a few iterations, I had enough and decided to plant it firmly in the snowbank on her property. I was holding it upright and away from my body (my first mistake), as I tried to pound the trunk into the snowbank in front of me. But I slipped on ice while doing so, and felt something inside move on the right side of my lower back. It hurt like the devil. It got a bit better after a day or so, but it lingered for well over a year. Occasionally it got so that I had to bend over at the waist for a few seconds or, better yet, crouch, for temporary relief.
In the summer of the following year, 2015, it actually started getting worse. I remember limping slightly, but painfully, to my car from after visiting my aunt at the hospital, and wondering if this was the beginning of the end for me. And then, perhaps a week or two later, it just spontaneously resolved. Well, almost. I still occasionally felt a bit of stiffness in the area, but I didn't have to bend over or crouch down for relief. It continued to get better over time.
On a side note, I had tried a number of things, including physiotherapy exercises (half-heartedly) and one of those firm rollers. I actually tweaked the other side of my lower back being a bit too aggressive with the roller. I returned the roller for a refund.
If I had to guess, I'd say that a combination of time and walking put things back into place for me. (The dead hang thing on the doorway pull-up bar came later.)