Why do we get back pain?

We would all like to know what causes our back pain and over the following weeks I will give an insight into the different types of problems that can cause back pain. We will start off with something that most people attribute their back pain to.

Muscle strain or myofascial pain.

I often hear from patients “it’s just a pulled muscle that’s causing my pain”. This may be true but usually there are reasons why the muscle suddenly decides to be “pulled” or “strained”. Firstly what actually is a pulled muscle? To start with it’s a muscle that is painful, ranging from mild discomfort to completely debilitating. At it’s most serious you can actually physically tear muscles, thankfully this doesn’t usually happen, what generally happens is that a tight band forms in the muscle and in certain places tender nodules will form know as trigger points.

Once these points have been located they can be relieved by applying direct pressure. The only problem is that these tight bands are usually a result of other problems that need to be addressed otherwise the tension can return. I will in my next post start to go into detail about these other problems.

Gardening and ‘bad’ backs.

As we all know gardening can bring on those aches and pains. We probably all know what we should be doing to alleviate this but as a quick reminder for those wanting to minimise the effect of gardening on their backs read this article.

Anti-aging benefits of keeping active when we get older and how to avoid back pain.

Another common misconception about back pain is just about getting old. That said as we get older the likelihood is that we can experience more back pain but that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything you can do about it. The reason we get more back or neck pain as we get older is that we’ve probably had the problem for a longer period not just because we are old. It is always good to get treatment for a problem as early as possible but treatment can still be beneficial later on. We see patients who have been diagnosed with joint pain and arthritis who have benefited from our treatments. The key to reducing problems as we get older is to keep active, “use it or loose it”. For more tips on keeping active read this article.