What causes lower back pain?
Your lower back supports your upper body, allowing you to bend and twist. The muscles in your lower back support your spinal column and allow you to flex and rotate your hips while you walk.
And the nerves give sensation and power to the muscles in your pelvis, legs, and feet.
Injury to the muscles, ligaments, joints, or spinal discs in your lower back can be debilitating, causing severe pain and preventing you from completing daily tasks.
Typically, lower back pain occurs due to a muscle strain or ligament sprain. This can happen suddenly or slowly over time due to repetitive movements that are hard on your back.
Strains occur when you stretch your muscle too far, and it tears. Sprains occur when overstretching and tears affect your ligament, which connects bones.
While sprains and strains can heal within a couple of weeks, lower back pain that lasts over three months is considered chronic. Common causes of chronic lower back pain include:
- Lumbar herniated disc
- Degenerative disc disease
- Spinal stenosis
- Osteoarthritis
- Deformity
- Trauma
- Compression fracture
Lower back pain can also occur due to dysfunction of the facet joints in the spine and the sacroiliac joint at the base of the spine. This can occur due to joint inflammation or too much or too little motion of the joint.
What are the different types of lower back pain?
There are several types of lower back pain; the two most common are mechanical and radicular pain.
Mechanical pain defines lower back pain from your muscles, ligaments, joints, or the bones in and around your spine. You typically feel this pain in your lower back, buttocks, and sometimes the top of your legs.
Radicular pain occurs when a spinal nerve becomes pinched or inflamed. This sensation consists of a sharp, burning pain in your lower back or on one side of your body and can be associated with numbness or weakness.
It’s also possible for lower back pain to develop without a definitive cause.
How is lower back pain treated?
At Eric Whitehouse DC, Dr. Whitehouse commonly treats lower back pain using holistic and natural chiropractic methods. This typically consists of spinal manipulation, manual manipulation, or chiropractic mobilization.
Spinal and manual manipulation refers to high-velocity adjustments that are applied to abnormal vertebrae in your back. This improves your range of motion and functionality and reduces nerve irritability.
Chiropractic mobilization refers to low-velocity adjustments, movements, and stretching of your muscles and joints to release tension and improve your range of motion.
To learn more about treatment options for lower back pain, call Eric Whitehouse DC or use the online booking tool to schedule an appointment.
