Back Pain

Lower back pain is a common problem in most of the general population.

This region of the spine is called your lumbar spine. Low back pain can occur spontaneously and can involve one or more of the many structures of the spine such as bone, joints, ligaments, nerves, or muscles. Low back pain can be quite debilitating for some people but in most cases, it is not life threatening and will resolve within a few days.

You may notice your symptoms get better or worse with changes in positions, such as sitting, lying, or even standing. Common causes of this type of low back pain are lifting a heavy object or twisting when lifting, poor posture, sudden movements that increase stress in the low back, and sports or work-related injuries.

Other causes include facet joint pain, degenerative disc disease, osteoarthritis, trauma such as a compression fracture, and spondylolisthesis.

Sciatic nerve pain or ‘sciatica’ refers to pain that is referred along the pathway of the sciatic nerve in the lower extremity.

The sciatic nerve is the longest nerve in the body. It originates in your lumbar spine and travels down the buttock and posterior leg. In most cases, symptoms of sciatic nerve pain will run along the pathway of this nerve and usually occurs on one side of the body. As your leg symptoms start to decrease, you may notice increased low back pain which is a normal response and indicates improvement of symptoms.

Common causes of this type of low back and sciatic nerve pain are disc herniations and lumbar stenosis.

In addition to low back pain and sciatic nerve pain, you may experience upper back pain also known as middle back pain.

This region of your spine is known as the thoracic spine. When there is dysfunction in the low back, the thoracic spine works harder to assist with movement, and therefore can become painful. The thoracic spine is responsible for most of the rotation in the spine.

When the middle back becomes stiff, your low back must compensate, placing increased pressure through the lumbar spine and causing low back pain.

Consequently, these two problems can go hand in hand.

- Unremitting, severe pain that does not improve with changes in position
- Bilateral severe leg pain
- Loss of bowel/bladder
- Numbness/tingling in groin area
- Loss of coordination and balance with walking
- Severe night pain