Back Pain Causes & Prevention

Back pain is symptomatic of other pain that may or may not be located in the spine or near the spinal column, which makes back pain often difficult to diagnose.

Some back pain may be related to organs experiencing pain or malfunction such as the appendix, kidney, bladder, pelvis or ovaries. When these organs begin to not work or function properly then pain begins to effect the spine and may cause chronic pain. Pain that is more often than not a result of the nerve root that prudeces forms of nerve impingement – or when a nerve has been touched, pressed or pinched. There are several types of nerve impingement which is usually associated with numbness in the leg where the originating nerve supplies feeling.

Herniated discs are the result of when a spinal disc becomes thinner and begins to slip or bulge out of the central spinal cavity where the nerve root is then pinched or impinged. Herniated discs, for the most part, are found in adults older than 20 years of age though less than 3% of these suffer from some sort of nerve impingement. Spinal stenosis will occur when invertabral discs lose their inherent moisture, thus losing mass as they age which decreases the space between discs. Under these circumstances even the tiniest of trauma may cause inflammation of the nerve area and may incur a case of scaiatica even without a rupturing disc.

Most spinal degeneration is a byproduct of changes in the disc which enhances the degeneration. This degeneration, in conjunction with disc disease in the back may produce symptoms that cannot be seen with x-ray imaging. Spinal degeneration will manifest as morning stiffness, pain after long periods of standing, or even while walking short distances.