10 things you didn’t know about Lower Back Pain with Brad Beer
It has been reported that lower back pain (LBP) affects up to 70% of the population at any one given point in time. Few people will pass through a life time without having the unpleasant experience of a sore lower back.
There is often a lot of misinformation that our patients have been exposed to prior to seeking our help. Here’s 10 tips that we hope help you better understand LBP:
- There are only 3 structures that can get sore in the lower back: the joints, discs, or nerve roots.
- You can have co existing causes of pain: for example a disc injury that then impacts a nerve root.
- The term ‘sciatica’ is not a diagnosis in itself. It is an umbrella term that refers to any pain referred down the leg from the lower back.
- Tight muscles in the hips (gluts, hip flexors, quadriceps) place extra pressure on your lower back.
- A stiff thoracic spine (bit that is above the lumbar spine) will put more load on the lower back.
- Wearing high heels puts more stress on the lower back as the pelvis tilts downward and in doing so ‘jams up’ the lower back.
- Your back is meant to bend. Many people avoid bending their lower back after their pain is settled for fear of a return of pain.
- Your discs take on extra fluid of a night. This process is called ‘imbibition’ and it is needed to keep the disc healthy.
- Through a day your spinal column can lose upwards of 1cm of height. This can be why you need to adjust the rear-view mirror on your way home in the afternoon.
- Smokers have a higher incidence and likelihood of developing lower back pain.
By Brad Beer (APAM)
POGO Guru Physio
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