What's Causing Your Back Pain?

The cause of your back pain often exists long before the pain begins.

There are many causes of back pain and are sometimes unavoidable. They can occur at any point during your life and it may take years before causing pain or other noticeable symptoms. While traumatic events like accidents and sports injuries can lead to problematic back pain, sometimes even the simplest movements, like picking up a pen from the floor, can have painful results. As long as your back is healthy and functioning correctly, it can withstand tremendous forces without injury. A football player can take a 230-pound tackle. But, if your back is out of adjustment or has weak supporting muscles, something as simple as taking a bag of groceries out of the trunk can cause a back injury. In children, misalignments can initially occur during the birth process, learning to walk and during play.

Pinched Nerves Cause Back Pain

According to the National Institutes of Health, the majority of acute low back pain is mechanical in nature, meaning that there is a disruption in the way the components of the back (the spine, muscle, intervertebral discs, and nerves) fit together and move.

Your spine is made up of a series of bones stacked like blocks on top of each other with cushions called discs in between to help absorb shock and weight. Facet joints are specialized joints that connect the vertebrae and allow us to twist and bend. In the center of each vertebra is a large opening, called the spinal canal, where the spinal cord and nerves pass. The vertebrae are held together by ligaments, which are fibrous tissues that connect bone to bone and help keep the spinal column in the correct position. From a side view, there are three natural curves to help distribute body weight and give us balance.

There are many issues that can develop from this delicate system. If your body does not realign even just one of these vertebrae, disease begins to develop.

Several common causes for spinal misalignments that are not easily detected, like an acute injury that is more obvious, include:

• Poor posture
• Weight
• Repetitive movement, usually from a work task
• Short leg
• Poor sleeping habits
• Bending forward too long
• Holding a phone to your ear with your shoulder
• Carrying a heavy purse, briefcase or backpack
• A difficult pregnancy
• Difficult birth
• Improper bending, lifting or carrying
• Stress or anxiety
• Environmental toxins that stress the body, like high quantities of caffeine, processed foods, smoking, alcohol

Chiropractic Care is the #1 Choice for Back Pain

Non-drug treatments, such as chiropractic, are recommended as the first treatment choice, before over-the-counter anti-inflammatory drugs (like aspirin and ibuprofen) or prescriptions for conditions like back pain, by new ACP guidelines.

Another big change to the guidelines is that acetaminophens (like Tylenol and Excedrin) should not be used at all, since recent evidence shows that these over-the-counter painkillers do not help back pain.

In fact, after an extensive study of all available care for low back problems, the federal Agency for Health Care Research and Quality recommended that low back pain sufferers choose the most conservative care first; and it recommended spinal manipulation as the only safe and effective, drugless form of initial professional treatment for acute low back problems in adults

An article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2013 also suggested chiropractic care as an option for people suffering from low back pain--and noted that surgery is usually not needed and should only be tried if other therapies fail.

Studies show that patients who see traditional doctors for drugs or surgery get a reduction in low back pain only half of the time. But patients that get treatment with a chiropractor for low back pain get a reduction in low back pain 94% of the time.

In fact, after an extensive study of all available care for low back problems, the Federal Agency for Health Care Research and Quality recommended that low back pain sufferers choose the most conservative care first. And it recommended spinal manipulation as the only safe and effective, drugless form of initial professional treatment for acute low back problems

About 400,000 people in the United States undergo spine surgery each year. Of those who undergo open neck or back operations, recent surveys have discovered that 30–40 percent experience some form of complications after surgery.

According to the University of California, Irvine Medical Center, of the 56 million Americans who have back pain, only 5 percent need surgery. Charles Rosen, M.D., clinical professor of orthopedic surgery at the University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine states, "An enormous number of back surgeries don't give patients long-term relief.” There's even a term for what happens when an operation doesn't improve a patient's condition — "failed back surgery syndrome," said to be the only diagnosis named for a treatment that hasn't worked.

Hi-tech images routinely uncover bulging discs and other scary-looking "abnormalities." Trouble is, those often have nothing to do with what's hurting. "If you took 100 people off the street and gave them MRIs, a third of them — even if they had no back pain whatsoever — would have obvious structural problems," says Dr. Rosen. At best, your doctor might be misled by your abnormal X-ray or MRI, or hope that the abnormality is the cause of your pain and that by fixing it, he'll make you better. At worst, says Dr. Rosen, "the doctor knows full well that the image could be a red herring, but the chance to 'fix' something, and get paid for it, is just too good to pass up."

Warnings Against Drugs for Musculoskeletal Conditions

The American College of Physicians (ACP), the largest medical specialty society in the world, updated its low-back pain treatment guidelines in 2017 to support a conservative approach to care for conditions like lower back pain and recommends spinal manipulation for non-invasive, non-drug therapy for low back pain.

As published in the Annals of Internal Medicine the guidelines state that only when such treatments provide little or no relief should patients move on to medicines such as ibuprofen or muscle relaxants, which research indicates have limited pain-relief effects. According to ACP, prescription opioids should be a last resort for those suffering from low back pain, as the risk of addiction and overdose may outweigh the benefits.