Back Pain

Back pain refers to the thoracic (upper) and or lumbar (lower) regions of the spine. Back pain can have an acute or chronic onset. Acute being generally sudden and temporary, whereas in chronic cases pain returns often and can be at times unpredictable. 

Back pain can be extremely debilitating and make the most simple everyday tasks difficult to perform. Approximately 80% of the general population will experience lower back pain at some point within their lifetime.

Back pain can occur for a variety of reasons from muscle strains or ligament sprains, to involvement with the vertebrea or intervertebral discs themselves. The vertebrea can be affected simply by the natural process of age, fractures or osteoporosis.

Alignment issues of the vertebrea relate to conditions such as scoliosis or spondylolisthesis and narrowing of the spinal canal within the vertebrea can cause stenosis. 

If there is disc involvement, conditions can include herniations, bulging or degeneration, which in turn in some circumstances can lead to compression on nerves causing referred pain.