LBP or lower back pain can arise from joints, nerves, disks, as well as the surrounding soft tissues. The QTF (Quebec Task Force) recommends that lower back pain be categorized into 3 major groups to make easy the task of discovering the cause of my LBP.
These 3 major groups include:
- Mechanical LBP
- Nerve-root related back pain
- Pathology/fracture
We are going to talk about the first two because they are the ones most commonly managed by chiropractors.
To make the proper diagnosis, you need to point your doctor or chiropractor in the right direction in regard to treatment. This helps avoid time wasting, as the doctor will be treating an unrelated condition that has the risk of increased likelihood of a prolonged and/or poor recovery. LBP isn’t an exception! The correct diagnosis ensures that treatment is specific and focused to yield noticeable results.
The most commonly seen type of pain is mechanical LBP, which consists of pain that originates from facet, sprains, SI (sacroiliac syndromes), strains, among others. Mechanical LBP differs from nerve root-related LBP, and the main difference is the lack of a pinched nerve. As such, pain typically doesn’t radiate, and if by any chance it does, it hardly moves past the knee and often doesn’t lead to weakness in a person’s leg.
The injury mechanism for both types of lower back pain can happen when one does the following:
- Maintains a weird position for too long
- Over lifts, bends, and/or twists
- Does too much work
Nevertheless, lower back pain can also occur insidiously or for apparently no reason. But, in most cases, if one ponders deep enough, they’ll be able to identify a series or an event of micro-traumas that extend back time and may be the cause of their current LBP complications.
Although nerve-rooted lower back pain is less common, it’s usually more severe because the pain caused by a pinched nerve is normally very sharp and can radiate a leg usually to the foot, as well as lead to muscle weakness, numbness, and tingling. The location of the weakness often depends on the type of the pinched nerve. Think of your nerve as a wire to a light whose switch is at the back where the nerve leaves the spine. When you turn on the switch (that is when the nerve is pinched) and the light turns on possibly in the inner foot, middle foot, and outer foot, or side, front or back of the thigh. In fact, the body has 7 nerves innervating or running into the leg; thus, often, a very particular location lights up in the limb.
Determining the cause of your LBP is very important, as it helps your chiropractic doctor not only to determine the type of treatments that work best in order to get rid of your pain but also to check on the places these treatments can be focused.
During treatment, your doctor may include medication, lifestyle changes or possibly surgery depending on the cause of the pain you are undergoing. Be sure to consult your doctor if your back isn’t feeling well. The doctor will without doubt be in a position to help you determine what’s causing the pain and help you alleviate it.