Understanding Your Back Pain
Dr. Yasin Khan is a board-certified anesthesiologist with a subspecialty in Pain Management. He cares for patients with chronic pain from cancer or non-cancer pain. His holistic approach to treating chronic pain include medication management, identifying pain generator using diagnostic interventional techniques which includes... more
About 80% of people will suffer from back pain at a time in their lives. Back pain can be caused by any mechanical or non-mechanical reasons. Sports injuries, accidents, simple movements, arthritis, poor posture, obesity, and stress are just a few of the potential causes of back pain.
It is important to understand the mechanism and quality of your back pain. Is pain localized to the back or does it radiates into legs and feet? What type of activity makes the pain worse or better? Is the pain sharpshooting, stabbing, electric shock-like?
What structures in the lower back can cause pain:
Muscles: usually muscle sprain or strain will cause local, dull, achy pain and will improve with anti-inflammatory drugs and rest.
Disc: acute disc herniation or slip disc will release a toxic chemical that is very irritant to the local nerve and causes inflammation and pain, pain radiating down the leg. Pain is sharp, burning, any movement, posture, and activity may make it worse. It may require more than just rest and anti-inflammatory. It may need by mouth steroids and/or some injection therapy (epidural steroid injection).
Spine joints facets: mechanical/torsion injuries can irritate tiny joints between vertebrae called facet joints. Pain is usually deep, achy, local muscle spasm and may radiate into buttocks. Usually, rest, anti-inflammatory medications, physical therapy, and TENS may help. Occasionally, it requires facet injections under x-rays.
Nerves: occasionally nerves can get irritated from structural changes in the spine due to arthritis where the foramina (holes where nerves exit the spine) can get narrowed and/or narrowing of the spine (spinal stenosis). Pain presentation can be back pain only or a combination of back and leg pain. One may need rest, medications, and injection therapy.
Comprehensive Pain Centers provide a number of back pain treatments, including:
- Steroid injections
- Nerve blocks
- Radiofrequency ablation
- Spinal cord stimulation
- Lysis of adhesions in spinal canal
If you suffer from chronic pain due to any condition or injury, find hope at Comprehensive Pain Centers. Our dedicated team of board-certified pain management physicians will work with you to treat your pain, increase your functionality, and quality of life to get you back into life.
