Understanding your Low Back Pain
Back pain is a complex and challenging issue that many of us will experience at least once in our life. With various types and numerous treatment options, finding the right approach can be hard. Therefore, in this month’s blog I’ll be breaking down some key insights to help you understand your low back pain and navigate your treatment journey.
Low back Pain: A Personal Experience
Back pain is highly individual. The intensity and manageability of pain can vary greatly from person to person. For instance, one person with a bulging disc may experience severe pain, whilst another with the same condition might have no symptoms at all.
Back pain can also be unpredictable, often flaring up and subsiding before returning and potentially intensifying over time. Because your pain is unique to you, being actively involved in your management plan and staying self-aware of your triggers can lead to better outcomes.
Sources of Back Pain
Your back endures significant stress daily, whether from twisting, sudden movements, or poor posture. Several structures in your back can be sources of pain, including:
- Muscles that support the spine
- Spinal nerves that exit the spinal canal and extend to your arms and legs
- Spinal or Sacroiliac joints that connect the spine and pelvic bones together
- Intervertebral discs that act as shock absorbers
Other potential pain sources include the bones, ligaments, and tendons.
Identifying the Cause of Pain
Pinpointing the exact cause of back pain can be diagnostically challenging. The brain often struggles to differentiate between injuries to closely situated structures. For example, a bulging disc may feel similar to an inflamed low back joint.
To diagnose your pain accurately, your chiropractor will take a comprehensive medical history and perform a thorough physical examination. And if indicated further diagnostic tests such as X-rays, CT’s or MRI scans may be advised.
Regions your pain could be coming from:
Effectively communicating the nature of your pain can be important for diagnosis as there can be many possible reasons for it. For example, the pain your describing could be:
- Local – basically from the structure you’re pointing too
- Referred – usually not coming where you feel it the most e.g. spinal nerve
- Joint – in or around the affected joint with restriction in movement
- Muscle – from the affected muscle usually pain with stretching or contracting
- Visceral – sometimes internal organs can perceive itself as low back pain
Next Steps in Treatment: Maintenance
Once our chiropractors diagnose where your low back pain is coming from and what’s contributing to it, they will develop a management plan tailored to help you reach your goals and needs. Typically, the duration of your plan is centered around the time required for optimal recovery of your injury. Which may differ from person to person.
The initial stage of your management plan involves various hands-on treatments such as adjustments, massage, dry needling etc. and rehab exercises which aim reduce pain and improve your function to reach your desired goals.
Once completed, your chiropractor will advise you whether or not to continue with maintenance care. Which is recommended especially for patients who have responded well to treatment and have had a history of chronic or recurrent low back pain. As maintenance care in these patients is shown to be beneficial for keeping you out of pain and keep you moving better for longer. 2,3
So if you’re experiencing low back pain and wanting to know more about where its coming from and how we can help, click here or give us a call on 0435 819 286 to make an appointment with one of our amazing chiropractors today!
Cooper, G. (2019) Understanding Different Types of Back Pain
Axén, I et al. (2019) Chiropractic maintenance care – what’s new? A systematic review of the literature
Hjertstrand, J et al. (2021) The Nordic maintenance care program: patient experience of maintenance care—a qualitative study
