Do you suffer from back pain more than twice per week? Have you been to the doctor for your back pain already, to no avail? If you’re like 80% of all Americans, you will be suffering from back pain sometime in your life. Unfortunately, almost 40 million of these become chronic cases of back pain that last months to years. In fact, back pain is the leading cause of disability for people under age 45, and is the fifth most common reason people visit the doctor’s office. Americans alone spend well over $25 million dollars in back pain remedies- most of which don’t work.
To relieve back pain, we would first need to understand how does back pain start?
The spine is made up of disks joint together, and the start of back pain usually signals these disks being out of position, termed “Herniated nucleus pulposa” (HNP). In layman’s term, it is called slipped disk, and it is defined by doctors as rupturing of the “intervertebral disk”.
There are many types of interruptions of the slipped disks, which consists of cervical C5-7 and “Lumbrosacral” (L4 and L5)
The cervical starts from the neck and is connected to the back and other parts of the body, and thus they are interrelated. Therefore, doctors will identify the back pain not just looking from the neck and the back, but the entire body, which includes heavy lifting, ligament weakness, congenital/inborn bone malformation, back and neck strains, trauma and degenerated disks. Checking the entire body is also known as etiology.
Following which, doctors will look into Pathophysiology, which is related to our body’s nervous system. The nervous system is connected to the core of the roots of the nerves found at the spinal canal. The protrusion of the “nucleus pulposus” causes back pain. Numbness and back pain may be a result of the compression of the spinal cord which constrains the movement of the roots and cord, and subsequently the failure of motor functions.
There are many stages involved in the assessment of back pain, which doctors termed as Lumbrosacral. This is the assessment that focuses on the pain that begins from the back.
• The first assessment is to look out for chronic or acute pain at the lower back. In this stage, the pain is contained at the area around the back.
• Following which, the patient may be assessed to look out for signs of the pain travelling to the buttocks as well as the legs. During the spreading of pain, the person may feel numb or weak, and a tingling sensation around the foot and legs.
• The final assessment is to look out for pain that causes ambulation.
This is the assessment that focuses on the pain that stems from the cervical. The symptoms below are indications of cervical pain:
• Neck weakness, deadness and rigidity
• Tingling sensations of the hands
If severe pain from the neck travels to the arms and to the hand, it may be a more severe condition, and doctors will check for slip disks.
When the patient encounters difficulty straightening the lower back region where the lumbar curves is situated in the smaller area of the back or the loins, doctors will look out for this source, and weaknesses that affects the upper body.
After performing a round of tests, doctors will review the diagnosis from time to time. These diagnostics may be due to x-rays, myelograms, tendon reflex, Laséque signs and /or EMG. EMG helps to observe the nerves near the spine while CSF measures the protein level. Tendon reflexes are used to test Achilles’ reflex or reactions, which is to check for any absence of upper boundary reflexes. X-rays is to identify the bone regions between narrow spaces in the disks. Myelograms are used to test for compressed spinal cord.
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