Understanding Different Types of Lower Back Pain

If you struggle with lower back pain, you are not alone. Approximately 80% of adults experience some degree of lower back pain at some point in their lifetimes, and over 25% of adults say that they’ve experience lower back pain in the last three months.

What causes back pain?

Below, we’re going to discuss the reasons that people might experience different types of back pain, and what your lower back pain symptoms may mean. If you are experiencing severe back pain, neurological symptoms, or have had mild to moderate back pain for more than 12 weeks, it’s time to get checked out by a professional.

Remember, everyone experiences back pain differently, and the intensity of back pain is different for every person. For example, one person may have a herniated disc and experience no symptoms, while another may have a simple muscle strain that causes excruciating pain. In some conditions, the pain can flare up occasionally and then improve, only to flare back up a few weeks or months later.

What Causes Lower Back Pain

Your spine is an amazingly complex piece of organic machinery, with many overlapping and connected structures that are capable of causing back pain. Worse, the spine is also prone to injuries such as twisting, sudden jolts, and chronic stresses such as sitting too much and having poor posture.

Anatomically, there are several common causes of lower back pain:

• The large nerve roots running to the arms and legs may become irritated
• Irritation of the smaller nerves in the discs
• Strains and sprains in the back muscles that support the spine
• Injuries to the bones, ligaments, and joints in the spine
• Damage to the discs (for example, a herniated disc), which puts pressure on spinal nerves

The underlying cause of an individual’s back pain can be difficult to identify, in large part due to the many overlapping structures we mentioned above, which can make it incredibly hard for your brain to distinguish the pain’s origin. For example, a muscle injury such as a sprain or strain may feel identical to a herniated disc.

When you begin any kind of treatment for back pain, your provider will ask you a series of questions about the history and nature of the pain, and will likely conduct diagnostic tests such as x-rays or MRI scans to identify the underlying injury or condition responsible for your back pain.

How You Experience Lower Back Pain Matters

The way that you experience back pain may give insight into what’s causing it. For example, the area of pain, radiating pain into the extremities, and any other related symptoms can be clues as to the pain’s origins.

There are several common classifications of back pain, including:

• Axial pain. Also known as mechanical pain, axial pain may be sharp or dull, constant or intermittent. Muscle strains and sprains are common causes of axial pain. Therefore, you may experience axial pain after an injury or stress to your back.
• Referred pain. This pain is generally dull or achy, and tends to move around to different places and vary in intensity. Degenerative disc disease is a common cause of referred pain.
• Radicular pain. This is a deep and searing pain that follows the path of a nerve from the spine to the arms and legs. It may also be accompanied by weakness or numbness in the extremity. This is often caused by compression, inflammation, or injury to a spinal nerve root.

For persistent or severe back pain, and any neurological symptoms, it is important to see a spine specialist for a diagnosis and potential treatment options. Ultimately, any treatment will be most successful if you’re well-informed of what’s causing your back pain, and are proactively involved in the decision-making process.

About the Author:

Dr. Singer has been a practicing chiropractor for more than 20 years, and USA Health & Therapy has been around since 2004. Over the course of his career, Singer has helped tens of thousands of people with all kinds of issues by using a wide variety of treatment strategies. He has extensive knowledge of chiropractic modalities, including Gonstead, Diversified, Thompson Drop Table, and Activator, and in 1997 he earned a special adjunctive Chiropractic Certification in Spinal Trauma (CCST) to better provide care for car crash victims. Dr. Singer is licensed to practice chiropractic medicine in both Florida and New York.