Lower Back Pain - "non-specific lower back pain"

Back pain plagues many of us. A whopping 8 out of 10 people get back pain at some point in their lives, equating to 80% of the population according to the NHS, and in the years of 2010 and 2011, 7.6 million working days were lost due to back ache.

Back pain has various causes, from plain old stress, to the more serious causes, like a fractured vertebrae or a herniated disc.

This article focuses solely on the least serious cause of back pain, one which has no obvious cause, and for this reason, is referred to as “non-specific back pain.”

Non-specific back pain usually presents as pain in the area at the base of the spine. It can start after exercise, or it could come on slowly, over a period of months. This kind of back pain is not usually associated with any kind of fall or trauma. The pain doesn’t radiate to other part of the body, that is to say, it stays local to the spine.

Exceptions!!

There are always exceptions to the rule and here are two of them: If you have lost the ability to control your bowels or bladder, you will need to seek medical assistance as a matter of emergency. If you have a fever and your urine smells funny, you may have a kidney infection, see your GP.

So what’s going on?

In the case of non-specific back pain, the pain you are feeling is likely to come from the muscles, not the bones. Your muscles are tense, due to being over-used from either sitting or standing for long periods of time. This state of tension is what is causing the pain. 

Fig 1. View of the spine from the back with Quadratus Lumborum, far left. Multifidus, left and nearest the spine. Longissimus and Iliocostalis Lumborum arranged tightly on the right.

The image shows the muscles as viewed from the back. I have removed the opposing muscle of each pair so that you can see all the different muscles . All these muscles are responsible for bending the body from side to side and, more crucially, extending the spine. In short, they help you sit and stand up straight. It is likely to be these muscles which are tense and causing pain. 

So what do you do about it?

Your doctor may well offer you pain killers and anti-inflammatories to deal with the pain. 

If the pain persists, or if you want to be rid of it more quickly, then consider seeing a physiotherapist, osteopath or chiropractor. They will treat the muscles causing the pain. I personally have treated many lower back problems with some startling results.

There are exercises which may also help, and I plan to write more about this in later articles.