Yes, COVID-19 can cause back pain. A large meta-analysis covering more than 11,000 patients found that about 10% of people with COVID-19 experience low back pain as a symptom of their infection. For some people, the pain resolves within days alongside other acute symptoms. For others, it lingers for weeks or months as part of long COVID.
Why COVID Causes Back Pain
When your body fights off the virus, your immune system floods your bloodstream with inflammatory molecules. This response, sometimes called a “cytokine storm” in more severe cases, doesn’t just target the virus. It affects tissues throughout your body, including muscles and joints in your back. The resulting inflammation can decrease muscle force, cause stiffness, and trigger pain even in people with mild infections who never need hospital care.
There’s also a more direct factor: being sick keeps you sedentary. Days spent in bed or on the couch reduce blood flow to your spinal muscles and stiffen your joints, which compounds the inflammatory pain. If you already had occasional back issues before getting infected, COVID can make them significantly worse. One study found that over 90% of people with pre-existing low back pain experienced a noticeable flare-up after infection.
What COVID Back Pain Feels Like
COVID-related back pain is typically a dull, widespread ache across the lower back, similar to the body aches you’d get with a bad flu. It often shows up alongside other symptoms like fatigue, fever, and muscle soreness elsewhere in the body. The pain tends to feel muscular rather than sharp or stabbing, and it usually affects both sides rather than one specific spot.
This is worth paying attention to because not all back pain during COVID is the same. If your pain is concentrated on one side of your mid-to-lower back (your flank area), especially with nausea, blood in your urine, or sudden high blood pressure, that could signal a kidney problem rather than simple muscle inflammation. COVID increases the risk of small blood clots, and in rare cases those clots can affect blood flow to the kidneys. One-sided flank pain during or after COVID deserves a call to your doctor, particularly if it feels different from typical muscle soreness.
How Long It Lasts
For most people, COVID-related back pain improves within one to two weeks as the acute infection clears. But a meaningful subset of people develop pain that sticks around much longer. Researchers at Michigan Medicine have identified chronic pain, defined as pain lasting more than three months, as one of the recognized features of long COVID. Low back pain specifically is categorized alongside conditions like fibromyalgia and migraine as a chronic overlapping pain condition that can develop or worsen after infection.
If your back pain started with COVID and hasn’t improved after several weeks, you’re not imagining it. Post-infection inflammation can sensitize your nervous system, meaning pain signals get amplified even after the original trigger is gone. This is a well-documented pattern in long COVID and one that responds to targeted treatment.
Managing Back Pain During and After COVID
In the first few days, the standard approach works well: rest, ice on the sore area, and over-the-counter anti-inflammatory medication like ibuprofen to reduce swelling and pain. You don’t need to stay completely still, though. Gentle movement is better than total bed rest once the worst of the acute illness passes.
Start with small, passive movements. Slowly bend and straighten your back while lying down or sitting, just enough to maintain flexibility without pushing through sharp pain. As that becomes more comfortable, add light stretching to keep the muscles and tendons along your spine from tightening up further. The goal in the first week or two is preserving range of motion, not building strength.
If the pain persists beyond the acute phase, shift your focus toward gentle strengthening. Simple exercises you can do at home, like bridges, bird-dogs, or wall sits, help rebuild the core and spinal muscles that weaken during illness and inactivity. Stretching the hip flexors and hamstrings also helps, since tightness in those areas pulls on the lower back. Consistency matters more than intensity here. A few minutes of daily movement does more than one aggressive session per week.
Pre-Existing Back Problems and COVID
If you already deal with chronic back pain, a COVID infection carries a higher risk of a significant setback. The systemic inflammation from the virus layers on top of whatever was already irritating your spine, whether that’s a disc issue, arthritis, or chronic muscle tension. The data backs this up: the vast majority of people with pre-existing low back pain reported their symptoms got notably worse after infection.
This doesn’t mean the damage is permanent. It does mean recovery may take longer, and you may need to be more deliberate about rebuilding. Returning to your pre-COVID exercise routine gradually, rather than jumping back in at your previous level, gives inflamed tissues time to calm down without losing the strength gains you had before getting sick.