Causes Of Back Pain & How To Treat Back Pain

Consequently, a regular routine of lower back exercises helps patients avoid stiffness and weakness, minimize recurrences of lower back pain, and reduce the severity and duration of possible future episodes of low back pain.

See Low-Impact Aerobic Exercise

Treatment Overview

Doctors divide low back pain into two categories:

Acute: This is pain that has lasted less than 3 months. People with chronic back pain are usually helped with more intensive treatment.
After you have had low back pain once, the pain is likely to come back.

Treatment for acute low back pain
Sometimes acute low back pain lasts longer than a few days, even after you try these treatments. Then your doctor may suggest other treatments, such as physical therapy or stronger pain medicine.

Living With Low Back Pain.

Other Treatment.

Treatment for chronic low back pain
If you've got chronic back pain, you know that one type of treatment by itself doesn't always stop your pain.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy can teach you stress management and pain control skills.

Low Back Pain Overview

Pain in the lower back or low back pain is a common concern, affecting up to 90% of Americans at some point in their lifetime. In up to 85% of people with low back pain, despite a thorough medical examination, no specific cause of the pain can be identified. America spends approximately $50 billion a year on low back pain.
Back pain can have many underlying reasons, but often no specific cause will be found and the pain will stop.

Low Back Pain Causes

Back pain is a symptom. Common causes of back pain involve disease or injury to the muscles, bones, and/or nerves of the spine. Your doctor will have this in mind when evaluating your pain.

Herniated discs develop as the spinal discs degenerate or grow thinner. Disc material expands into the spinal canal, which compresses the nerves. • Musculoskeletal pain syndromes that produce low back pain include myofascial pain syndromes and fibromyalgia.

Myofascial pain is characterized by pain and tenderness over localized areas (trigger points), loss of range of motion in the involved muscle groups, and pain radiating in a characteristic distribution but restricted to a peripheral nerve. Fibromyalgia results in widespread pain and tenderness throughout the body. • Infections of the bones (osteomyelitis) of the spine are an uncommon cause of low back pain.