What is Back Pain?

Acute or short-term low back pain generally lasts from a few days to a few weeks. Most acute back pain is the result of trauma to the lower back or a disorder such as arthritis. Pain from trauma may be caused by a sports injury, work around the house or in the garden, or a sudden jolt such as a car accident or other stress on spinal bones and tissues. Symptoms may range from muscle ache to shooting or stabbing pain, limited flexibility and range of motion, or an inability to stand straight. Chronic back pain is pain that persists for more than 3 months. It is often progressive and the cause can be difficult to determine.

Currently, researchers are examining the use of different drugs to effectively treat back pain, in particular, chronic pain that has lasted at least 6 months. Other studies are comparing different health care approaches to the management of acute low back pain (standard care versus chiropractic, acupuncture, or massage therapy). These studies are measuring symptom relief, restoration of function, and patient satisfaction.

More Back Pain Misconceptions

Let's continue to dispel the misconceptions that people deal with to do with backache and back pain. There certainly are a lot of them. People tend to listen to the words of wisdom from the local know it all more than they do to the facts given to them by experts. There are so many foolish things that are said about back pain that sorting through them can be quite a tortuous job.

People believe that those who do physical work for a living, like construction workers, are more likely to have back problems that those who work in an office. This is extremely wrong. It is a well know fact that those who sit all day, leading a sedentary existence, and far more likely to have back issues than are those whose jobs include physical exercise.

Many assume that if you hurt your back you have done something to your spine. But spinal injuries account for very little of the back pain people sufferer from. Most of the time back pain in because of muscles strain, ligaments or tendons pulled, or poor posture which makes everything that much off kilter and so the body must compensate which causes lots of muscles to ache in the lower back. Have you ever heard that smoking aggravates back pain? Well, although many people do not want to believe it, this is true.

Some people believe, wrongly, that if you suffer back pain at some point in your life it will get worse each time you experience it again, especially as you age. In fact back pain seems to be worse between the ages of thirty-five and fifty-five. Then it seems to level out. Over the remaining years of a person's life they may still have back pain, but it is usually related to aging and so it is different.

Others think that if you have an MRI anything that is found will need to be corrected by surgery immediately. This is far from true. For one thing an MRI cannot tell the health care provider which part of the spine hurts. It often shows conditions of the back, like a herniated disc, that may not be causing the back pain. It is not unknown for an MRI to show something abnormal in the spine when the patient is having no back pain at all. The opposite can also happen with the patient having back pain and the MRI showing nothing wrong. Therefore the MRI is not always a useful test.

There are equally many myths about chiropractors and back pain. Some people actually believe that once you go to a chiropractor you must go for the rest of your life. This is not true. Nor is it true that because of the manipulation a chiropractor does that this wears out your joints. The treatment does not rub your bones together. This treatment is safe and regulated so there are no worries at all should you want to be treated by a chiropractor.

Written by: Scott Parat