Back Pain And Lower Back Pain Overview

Back pain is a very common disorder. Each of us in our life feels it. It is more common in working individuals, who have to do work by sitting for a long period. It is caused by various reasons like muscle and ligament strain or sprain, injury, Spinal Cord Problem, lifting heavy objects, slip disc, etc. According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorder and Stroke (NINDS), at least 80% of United States residents suffer from lower back pain.

Back pain is divided into three regions, the first one is the cervical region (neck pain), the second is the thoracic region (middle back pain), third is the lumbar region (lower back pain) or coccydynia (tailbone or sacrum pain) based on the segment affected.

The lumbar region is the most commonly affected area and it is also known as Low back pain (LBP) and lumbago. It occurs mainly due to the disorder happening in the muscles, nerves, and bones.

  Structure and Function of Back

The central support system of our body is the spine or also known as the backbone, which connects different parts of the musculoskeletal system. The spine provides us great flexibility and strength to sit, stand, bend, walk and twist. Generally, the spine of an adult has 24 bones known as vertebrae, which sit one over the other, in between them there are discs, muscles, and ligaments for support.

 Whereas the lowest vertebra is fused and has no disc. There are small joints known as facet joints present on either side of the spine and a spinal cord is passed inside the vertebrae. The spinal cord is the column of nerves that arises from the brain, which passes the signals (message) between CNS (or central nervous system) and muscles.

Treatment Diagnosis

A description of the pain done by the patient helps the doctor in making the diagnosis. To identify the type of pain, doctors will try to know the history of pain. For this, the doctor may ask the following questions:

What kind of pain is there such as a Burning Sensation, feeling of kissing, etc. What time does it hurt? It hurts all day. If you have pain while staying, then it is better to maintain a diary for this. In such a way the doctor will be able to understand your pain.

Which part of the body is hurting and how far is this pain spreading. The doctor can ask It.

Factors that increase and decrease pain, Effect of pain on your daily work or mood, What do you understand by pain? Pain can be identified in many ways. However, for its proper treatment, it is most important that the patient should clearly tell the doctor every information related to his problem.

The doctor may ask you to take the following tests:

The electrodiagnostic process may include electromyography, nerve conduction studies, and evoked potential tests.

Electromyography (EMG) means that your doctor knows the health status of muscles and the nerve cells that control them.

In nerve conduction studies, doctors use two sets of electrodes that are placed on the skin of the muscle. The first set gives the patient a light shock. This stimulates the nerve that controls that muscle. The second set of electrodes is then used. It is used for recording Electrical Signals of nerves. With this information, doctors can determine whether there is nerve damage or not. The Evoked Potential (EP) test also uses two sets of electrodes to stimulate the nerve. One set of electrodes are connected to any one part of the body and the other set is mounted on the head to record the speed of neural signal transmission over the brain.

Imaging: