Do you remember the last time you felt pain in your lower back?
Are you feeling it right now?
Was there even anything specific that you did that caused your pain to start?
In most cases there is no specific incident or cause that brings on your pain and lower back pain symptoms. Most of the time you’ll feel it after waking up and getting out of bed, getting up from a chair or even just turning or bending down.
While these minor movements may begin the pain that you are experiencing it is the underlying problem that causes your lower back pain.
What Causes Your Lower Back Pain – The Most Diagnosed Problems That You May Suffer From
Facet sprain (Facet Joint syndrome)
You have facet joints throughout your entire spine.
In your lower back they’re known as lumbar facet joints.
These joints and the ligaments which hold these bones in place allow you to perform movements such as bending and twisting. These joints also limit your body from moving more than it should.
Sudden movements such as quickly getting up or twisting can cause these joints to lock, leading to inflammation. The inflammation in the joint is what causes your pain.
Facet sprains are the most common lower back pain injury. If you experience pain when arching back or standing from a seated position it is likely you may have facet joint syndrome.
Muscle Strain
Think about how long you sit for in a day.
Add it all up and it’s sure to be at least 8-10 hours.
Sitting for prolonged periods puts continuous load and micro-trauma on your lower back. This leads to continued contraction of your muscles which eventually get tired and fatigue therefore causing pain when you get up or move around.
With muscle strains you may experience a dull to sharp catching pain in your lower back which causes you to suddenly freeze to stop the pain from continuing.
Degenerative Disc Disease
Between each 2 bones in your spine is a disc.
This disc absorbs any force that you transmit through your spine when you sit, stand or move around.
Over time the discs in your spine begin to wear out for a number reasons including:
– Bad posture
– Trauma
– Repeated and chronic injuries
– Aging
As the discs wear out this can commonly cause lower back pain due to inflammation around the area of degeneration (wear and tear to the bone).
This degeneration also causes a change to the biomechanics of the spine leading to some areas becoming overused and some becoming underused which leads to micro-trauma and further inflammation and pain.
If you suffer from degenerative disc disease you may experience symptoms such as pain in the lower back, pain when bending, picking something up or twisting as well as referral into your buttock or thigh.
SI Strain (Sacro-Iliac Joint strain)
Your SI joints are the 2 little dimples you feel at the very bottom of your lower back.
It’s a common lower back pain cause and one that is very often self-misdiagnosed as sciatica because of its symptoms.
The SI joint causes pain because it takes a large amount of stress from the entire upper body before transmitting that force through those 2 little dimples into your pelvis and legs.
Continued sitting, poor posture, lifting incorrectly, scoliosis and other biomechanical factors can increase the stress going through these joints.
This leads to varying degrees of damage to your joints and the surrounding muscles and ligaments leading to micro trauma, inflammation and pain.
You may be experiencing lower back pain from SI strain if you feel:
– Pain over the dimples in your back
– Pain running across your back (From the middle towards the sides)
– Pain into the groin, the buttock or down the leg to the thigh
Pain running down the thigh is a common referral pattern of SI Joint pain but is often confused for the symptoms of sciatica which is why it’s so important to have the cause of your lower back pain correctly diagnosed.
Bulging Disc
As mentioned in degenerative disc disease, the disc is a cushion which absorbs force going through your spine.
The difference between a bulging disc and degenerative disc disease is: Bulging disc symptoms comes about due to protrusion of the disc onto a nerve root.
When the disc has to absorb too much force at once it leads to significant lower back pain as well as sharp pain down the leg where the nerve is situated. The most common causes of a bulging disc are:
– Picking up a heavy object
– Incorrectly picking something up
– Prolonged sitting throughout the day and week
– Poor posture
Poor Posture
If you looked at a photo of yourself would you say you have good posture?
Poor posture is clinically one of the biggest lower back pain causes but one of the most under looked.
You may have noticed a trend in relation to lower back pain causes. They all have sitting and bad posture in common as a cause of the problem.
This comes as no surprise when you consider that you most likely sit down for large parts of the day.
Poor posture causes a change in the biomechanics of your entire body.
– When your head pokes forward the pressure through your spine increases
– When your pelvis tilts it leads to increased pressure through your lower back
The increase in pressure through your lower back because of altered biomechanics can cause an uncomfortable achy feeling in your back on top of all the other problems mentioned above.
Learn The Cause of Your Lower Back Pain From A Professional
If you are suffering from one of these lower back pain causes and experience some of the symptoms mentioned throughout this article, it is important to see a qualified health practitioner to get an accurate diagnosis of your problem.
While these are the most common lower back pain causes, there are many other conditions which can cause lower back pain, some being extremely serious to life threatening if they are left undiagnosed.
If you are interested in getting your problem diagnosed so that the correct lower back pain treatment is undertaken for your problem call us today or book online to see if our Sydney Chiropractor can help you.
