Low Back Pain
The commonest reason for people consulting a physician or taking a leave of absence from work is the pain in the lower back. It is the leading cause of disability. 80% of the people experience repeated low back pain, once they have it.
Low back pain is a common condition only some people face some severe cause behind the low back pain. In acute low back pain, it resolves within 2-6 weeks, there are rare cases who have serious low back problems.
In short, this is a very common problem and can be treatable with some cure and lifestyle changes, you just need to be aware of the causes, and you can control it easily.
Symptoms
- Pain in the lower back
- Pain can be shooting, achy, or stabbing
- Diffuse pain on the low back
- Pain can radiate in the thighs or legs
- Pain can aggravate in walking or standing, lifting weight, forward bending, and twisting
Causes
- Muscular strain or sprain
- Weakness of muscles of the back
- Tightness of hamstring muscles
- Spinal cord herniation or bulging
- Osteoarthritis of spine ( spine OA)
- Squeezing of sciatic nerve or sciatica
- Spinal stenosis (narrowing of spinal canal due to osteoarthritis or any other reason)
- Spondylolisthesis (Vertebral slip)
- Osteoporosis of the vertebrae
- Scoliosis (Curving of the spine sidewards)
- Lordosis (Excessive lumbar back curvature)
- Ankylosing spondylitis
- Cauda equina syndrome
- Cancer
- Infection
Risk factors:
- Age: Chances are more in people who are over 30 or 40 years of age.
- Less activity or less exercises can also a risk because it causes muscle weakness
- Obesity: Additional weight exerts extra pressure on the back
- Some other disease like osteoarthritis or cancer an also lead to low back pain
- Weight lifting in a wrong manner
- Psychological conditions and smoking may also cause low back pain
Diagnosis
- Physical examination by your doctor, will also ask for history or any injury or weight lifting
- X-ray is used for checking the bony injury and vertebral alignment
- MRI performed to check the compression of spinal cord and disc herniation
- Sometimes blood investigations are also required to check any kind of infection
- A bone scan may be prescribed
- Electromyography and nerve conduction velocity test may be prescribed
- Conservative
- Medication: to reduce pain, muscle relaxers, and anti-inflammatory
- Physiotherapy exercises to improve muscle strength and reduce the pain
- Electrical modalities like short wave diathermy, IFT, and hot fermentation are useful for pain reduction
- Massage also helps in reducing the pain
- Surgery:In cases where all the conservative measures are failed (severe condition) and the reason behind the knee pain is serious like disk herniation, Slip disc, Spinal fracture, a loss of bladder or bowel control, and loss of sensation in the legs along with motor loss.
- Discectomy: To release stress from the pinched nerve root due to disc herniation or spurring of bone
- Foraminotomy: To open the foramen
- IDET (Intradiscal electrothermal therapy): In this procedure, a needle insertion into disc using a catheter, this heats up the disc and increases the thickness of disc wall, and also cut down the internal bulging
- Nucleoplasty: performed to remove the nucleus (inner disc material)
- Spinal fusion
- Spinal laminectomy or the spine decompression for increasing the spinal space