Low back pain is a prevalent medical problem in U.S. One big study revealed that over a quarter of grownups reported having lower back pain in the past three months. Both genders suffer equally from lumbar spine pain, which can be a dull, consistent ache or a sudden, agonizing ache that could debilitate its victim. There is treatment for back pain and several ways to manage it when it recurs. Acute pain tends to be the most common kind, and it hardly lasts longer than six weeks. If you have been having lumbar pain for longer than six weeks, it might be the chronic type that generally lasts longer than three months.
Low back pain can improve even when the cause is unknown, and it can recur. In case this sort of pain has become a serious bother to your daily life, a back pain treatment near me can be extremely helpful. Once you have your lumbar spine investigated, you will know whether you have an underlying disease. Additionally, your doctor will find out whether the pain is coming from an injured muscle, tendon or ligament. Seeking early intervention is always prudent, as good measures can be taken before the worst happens.
Treatment for back pain will be selected based on your diagnosis. Together with safe and effective exercises, a proper diet and use of cold and hot compression packs, your medical back pain treatment near me option may yield positive results.
How lower back pain is like
Once you visit your back and knee pain treatment near me service provider, he or she will confirm some facts about lumbar pain. First, lumbar spine problems are some of the leading causes of job-related disability and skipped work days. This type of pain can start suddenly, especially after trying to lift a heavy object or being involved in an accident. Further, it can develop gradually over several years as your spine succumbs to aging.
Acute lower backache tends to be short-lived and can go away on its own after a few days or weeks of treating yourself with home remedies. Acute pain occurs when your lower back area parts’ (muscle, spine, intervertebral discs and nerves) natural working mechanism is disrupted. If this type of pain continues beyond 4 to 12 weeks, it will be referred to as subacute low back pain. Lumbar pain may also result from living a sedentary lifestyle with little to no exercise during your business days and then followed by a strenuous weekend workout session. When pain is chronic, it has persisted for twelve weeks or longer even if treatment for back pain was offered earlier. Acute lumbar spine pain that doesn’t get better may become chronic low back pain at about twelve months.
While back pain treatment near me specialists could relieve your chronic low back pain in certain circumstances, it could continue in spite of being addressed surgically or medically. Obviously, surgery is picked when drugs fail to cure you as it is invasive and hard to recover from.
Understanding your lower back pain
To understand lumbar spine pain, you must first know the components that make up its structure. Your lower back area has five vertebrae—L1 to L5. There role is to give support to your upper body. The spaces between your vertebrae are kept intact by some rounded, rubbery pads—Intervertebral discs. These are shock absorbers for your entire spinal column and pad your bones when you move your body. There are ligaments too that hold your vertebrae in place, as well as tendons that connect your muscles to the spinal column. Up to thirty-one pairs of nerves are embedded to your spinal cord and their work is to regulate body movements and convey signals from your body to the brain. To comprehend this well, go to a back pain treatments near me centre and speak to a back specialist
Causes of pain in your lower back
Whenever there is pain in your lower back, something is usually amiss with your lumbar spine components and treatment for back pain is necessary. In most cases, the lumbar pain is just mechanical and will often disappear sooner than later. When backache is not mechanical, then it could be due to spondylosis. This is general degeneration of the spine caused by normal erosion of joints, bones of the spine and discs. Aging is the leading cause of spondylosis, as well as the following:
- Sprains and strains – A sprain results when our back ligaments get overstretched and torn. On the other hand, strains are described as splits that affect the muscle or tendon. Sprains and strains can happen when you twist and lift a heavy load inappropriately or when you overstretch your back. Sometimes strains and sprains triggers muscle spasms that can hurt so badly and to rule them out, seek from a back pain treatment near me medical doctor.
- Herniated or raptured disc – An intervertebral disc can be compressed and develop a hernia (bulge outward). This could also cause it to rapture, provoking lumbar spine pain. To check if you have a hernia, talk to a knee and back pain treatment near me physician. He or she will perform certain exams that will enable them to see what’s going on in your spine.
- Intervertebral disc degeneration – This is categorized as a mechanical cause of lumbar spine pain. It happens when one or more intervertebral discs stop functioning well due to age-related wear and tear. If they stop cushioning your vertebrae as you bend and flex your back, then there can be terrible pain. The more discs deteriorate, the more pain is felt and this means that you need treatment for back pain without delay.
- Sciatica pain – This type of low back pain is common in people who have a pinched or compressed nerve. Sciatic nerve is the largest in the body and it starts from your lower back and ends in the back of each leg. Thus, it passes through your buttocks, back of thighs, and calves. Sciatica pain can also happen when there is a spinal nerve root injury or inflammation as well as a tumor or cyst. The only way to know the real cause of your sciatic nerve pain is to go to the leading back pain treatment near me clinic. Sciatica pain tends to have a burning sensation that radiates to each buttock and down one leg. It can even travel down to your foot and at that point it needs to be checked by a reputable provider of treatment for back pain. This is even more important if you feel pain, numbness and muscle weakness.
- Radiculopathy – This is a condition that is triggered by a compressed, injured or inflamed nerve root in your lower back. If there is pressure on the nerve root, pain, tingling or numbness will be felt around the lower back and elsewhere in the body where that particular nerve serves. Radiculopathy is a known cause of sciatica nerve pain and it may arise when one suffers from spinal stenosis, a raptured disc or a herniated disc that presses on a nerve root.
- Trauma or injury – Professional sports people often get into accidents that cause traumatic back injuries. These can occur after being involved in a car accident or a traumatic fall from a high place. Back trauma can injure your tendons, ligaments or muscles and if that happens, lower back pain can result. Intervertebral discs can also herniate or rapture if the spine becomes so compressed that some of its nerve roots are exposed to extreme pressure. Compressed and irritated spinal nerves can lead to sciatica pain or back pain. Thus, after being in a bad accident, it’s advisable to seek treatment for back pain as well.
- Spondylolisthesis – When a vertebra of the lower spine leaves its natural place due to whatever cause, it can pinch a nerve in the process and cause lumbar spine pain.
- Skeletal irregularities – These entail scoliosis, lordosis and other congenital abnormalities of the spine. Scoliosis refers to a curvature of your spine that stays pain free until you reach your middle age. Lordosis is an abnormally accentuated arc in the lower back and it can be the root cause of your lumbar spine discomfort. Perhaps you have other anomalies that you were born with and the only way to know is to seek back pain treatment near me online.
- Spinal stenosis – This refers to a situation where narrowing of the spinal column exerts pressure on the spinal cord and nerves. If such a problem exists, you will feel numbness or pain when walking. If you don’t see a back and knee pain treatment near me doctor, you will eventually experience sensory loss and weakness in the lower extremities.
Like most people, you are probably so worried that your lumbar spine pain is related to an underlying condition. Until you are diagnosed with some disease in your lower back, don’t assume it’s there. But if it’s found, you will receive treatment for back pain without delay. Meanwhile, here are possible health conditions that might be found in your lumbar area by the top back pain treatment near me clinic:
- Tumor – While a tumor of the back is quite rare, it affects some people who have lower back pain. If there is tumor in your back, it could be there because of cancer that has affected another part of your body. So have it checked by the top treatment for back pain specialist in your area.
- Kidney stone – If this condition is present, extremely sharp pain is felt in the lower back and affects just one side.
- Infection – There are a number of infections that can attack the vertebrae, often known as osteomyelitis, although they are rare. Infections that affect your intervertebral disc, often called discitis, could also be the reason why you have pain in your back. Sacroiliitis, a name given to the infections of the sacroiliac joints that connect your lumbar spine to the pelvis, can also cause pain. However, infections hardly ever affect the lower back, but they can attack some people.
- Abdominal aortic aneurysms – This can happen if the large blood vessel that takes blood to the stomach, pelvic area and legs becomes too large. If your aneurysm is enlarging, back pain can result and treatment for back pain must be sought right away. This will help your doctor assess the situation and arrest the problem before the vessel raptures.
- Cauda equine syndrome – This is a serious situation that is very rare and it entails a problem with a raptured disc. Due to this, material from a raptured disc is shoved into the spinal canal where it compresses a group of lumbar and sacral nerve roots. If this condition develops, the victim can fail to control their bowels and urine. And if left untreated, the cauda equine syndrome can trigger neurological problems.
- Inflammatory joint disease – The main one is arthritis, which can take the form of rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, and spondylitis(spondyloarthritis or spondyloarthropathy). Any inflammatory disease of the joints in your lower back can cause pain.
- Endometriosis – This affects women and it’s described as growth of uterine tissue in other parts outside the womb.
- Osteoporosis – A bone disease that causes decreased bone density and strength. If present, osteoporosis can cause painful fractures of the vertebrae. Getting your treatment for back pain now means that such a disease can be discovered early and managed prior to causing fractures.
- Fibromyalgia – This condition causes chronic pain that spreads to all muscles. It also causes a lot of fatigue. Back pain treatment near me doctors that are qualified in pain management and spinal column issues can find out if you have fibromyalgia.
How a Back and Knee pain treatment near me clinic can help you with
Whenever there is a little back discomfort, most people don’t take it seriously. They see it as a condition that would soon disappear without much effort on their part. Unfortunately, some kinds of back pain do not clear without medical treatment for back pain. Thus, having backache that seems to worsen every day means that you need to see the best back pain treatment near me experts now. It also means that your pain has become chronic and should be investigated and eliminated as soon as possible.
If you are pregnant, or if you are on your period, don’t be alarmed by low back pain as this is normal. In case you are overweight, try to exercise and change your diet to lose your excess weight that is obviously stressing your back. Exercising daily is better than doing it only during the weekends. Being inactive the entire week and then exercising vigorously over the weekend can aggravate your backache instead of relieving it.
It could be that your job requires you to lift, push or pull heavy things that cause you to twist your spine unsafely. Alternatively, you possibly sit for 8 hours every day and your back posture is poor. It’s important to learn new ways to support your back when working so as to reduce your back pain. Even if you receive treatment for low back pain, the discomfort will recur if you continue putting your back at risk when working. As for aging, there isn’t much you can do because it happens to everybody. However, your back pain treatment near me pain expert will give you instructions on how to handle your age-related backache.