By Kari Lambden PT, Cert MDT
Low Back Pain – A Frustrating and Painful Struggle!
Low back pain can be a very frustrating struggle, limiting ability to work and inhibiting our day-to-day tasks. Even short duration low back pain can cause anxiety, depression, and fear. Especially when you don’t know what to do about your pain.
Extremely Common and Often Recurrent
Mechanical Low Back Pain is the most common ailment we see in physiotherapy. Over 80% of adults will experience LBP at some time or another over the course of their life. Back pain is the second most common reason for Canadians to see their doctor. 60-75% of patients that have back pain once will experience recurring problems. In that way, we can think of back pain in humans as a “normal” part of life. One reference even compared back pain to a common cold! And in fact, like a cold, back pain occurs and often runs its course and then is gone again. But when it doesn’t go away as expected or when the pain is very severe, we need to seek treatment.
What Is Low Back Pain?
The majority of back pain is mechanical. That simply means that there is a problem with the moving parts of the spine. The tissues affected may be the: lumbar discs, spinal joints, ligaments, tendons, muscles, nerves, or cartilage. Mechanical pain arises when the soft tissue between two joints of the spine has been over stretched, gets locked up, or—in some case—torn. Inflammation may be part of the problem but once the mechanics are corrected, the inflammation usually settles down. Back pain may start with an incident/injury or strain or for no apparent reason. Low back or lumbar spine issues often masquerade as pain in the buttock or “sciatica”. The pain will be caused or affected by certain positions or movements. According to that logic, it will typically respond well (i.e. be relieved) to specific positions or movements. With the advice of a therapist, the patient can learn to do some of these maneuvers themselves (self treat) although some “hands-on” by the therapist may be needed to get things started.
Factors contributing to LBP?
- Sedentary lifestyle
- Weight gain
- Age (most common in the 30-50 age group)
- Heredity
- Overtraining or training errors (too much too soon)
- Weekend warrior (after sitting all week at a desk)
- Pregnancy
- Anxiety/Depression
- Heavy job (lifting, bending, stooping, twisting) over a long period
- Working in awkward or bent postures
- Poor sleep quality
- Other illnesses (diabetes, depression, systemic disease)
When you combine some of the above risk factors with an activity such as shovelling (repetitive heavy loading combined with lifting, twisting and bending), it is not surprising that many people get back pain after shovelling. Next month we will discuss ways to manage when low back pain strikes!
