Written by Anika Young - Chiropractor
Are you one of the 1 in 6 Australians who will answer yes to the following,
You:
Currently have back pain
Have experienced it in the past
If so…
This is for you!
Recent statistics say that just over 16% of Australians will experience low back pain over their life course. My point being that you are not alone!
This article will provide you with clarity about some:
Sources of low back pain
Reasons for flare-ups, and
What you can do to manage them
We know that there are several structures in our back that can produce pain. The back consists of bones, discs, facet joints, ligaments and muscles.
What is the source of your low back pain?
There are 3 main ‘buckets’ when it comes to what may be causing your pain:
90% of the time your muscles, joints, discs and/or ligaments are responsible.
10% Nerve roots can be the cause of pain in approximately 10% of cases and
Less than 1% of the time there is an underlying serious condition responsible for back pain.
If you think about the structures in your low back like a thread on a shirt, you can rarely entirely isolate every thread. Therefore in some circumstances multiple structures in your back can cause pain. This is why not every episode of back pain has the same pain characteristics.
Research has been done into mapping individuals back pain over time. The majority of peoples experience of back pain is episodic. Meaning that you may have flare-ups!
Rarely lasting longer than 6-8 weeks, these are periods of time with higher pain intensity and before pain levels return to baseline (which may be mild pain or ideally no pain).
Not too long in the scheme of things, but you already know the implications of back pain or pain in general and flow on effects that this can have on your ability to cope. It effects on your sleep, increase your worry, increase fatigue and much more.
Considering the impact on your life is high and the chances of multiple episodes is likely it pretty important you…
Understand The Reasons Your Low Back Will Flare Up
Time to talk about the nitty gritty of pain science and why your back is doing you dirty like this!
Pain is a necessary response as it can identify when there is a threat or the potential for injury. On a fundamental level your body has these things called ‘nociceptors’ that pick up signals and send them to your brain.
Your brain interprets these signals, and this is where pain is first experienced.. once it hits the brain. The brain uses other information that can turn down and up how much pain you experience.
Feelings
Thoughts
Expectations
Past experiences
In the acute phase, less than 6-week mark pain is useful to remind you that you are healing from an injury. However, when pain persists and enters the chronic phase, medically speaking lasting greater than 6 weeks the brain can become more sensitive to these pain signals and therefore can manifest in more pain.
At a nuts-and-bolts level, lets link this with a tangible real-life experience.
We have our patient Bob. A 32-year-old male, he moved to a new house about 6-months ago. As he bent forward to pick up a heavy box of the ground he felt significant pain in his back. He has limited forward bending movements to not flare-up the pain. 6-months down the track, the initial injury has healed, however he is not back to his previous activities.
This is because when he begins to bend forward the nociceptors in the back are sending messages to the brain and his past experience of back pain has associated this movement with pain.
Don’t be like Bob!
Strategies to reduce the effects of injury 6 months later
To begin, when it first happens ensure, you have allowed the source of the pain to heal. This is where staying active, chiro, physio or osteo, heat, education, massage and acupuncture can be useful.
In the chronic phase, the above management strategies are also useful. But let’s talk specifically about some of those factors we discussed earlier that you can influence to help reduce your pain intensity.
Factors that can potentially increase our ability to cope with back pain ensuring that we are looking after our mental health, physical health and we feel supported by our family, partner and friends.
Things that decrease our ability to cope with back pain at negative pain beliefs (e.g. in Bobs case, bending forward will give me pain), worry, stress, physical stressors – repeated strenuous loads, a co-morbid injury and social demands.
I implore you to have a brainstorm and try to identify factors that allow you cope better with pain and those that do not. I will go first.
Please let me know how you go with weighing up factors that may be influencing your pain. If you have any questions please send an email to anika@balancehp.com.au or a direct message on Instagram to @chiro.anika.
If you are struggling with persistent back pain and feel as though you aren’t covering as many bases as you could be please book in and I would love to help you.