UNDERSTANDING BACK TROUBLE OTHER BACK PROBLEMS-OTHER CAUSES OF BACK PAIN

The symptoms of skeleto-muscular dysfunction in the back are sometimes mimicked by other illnesses not connected with the spine. One important reason why doctors have blood tests done in addition to X-rays is to eliminate the possibility that one of these illnesses is responsible for a patient’s problem. The most serious of them is a tumour on the spine or even in the abdomen, causing back pain by compressing a nerve. This is no more than a remote possibility: in the great majority of cases the back pain is in fact found to be due to some mechanical disturbance.

Everyone is familiar with the ache in the bones that goes with influenza; many other viral infections are able to produce some degree of inflammation in the joints. Occasionally the pain may be particularly severe in the lower back. In such cases, however, there are sure to be other symptoms such as a high temperature or a sore throat, and if the infection affects the digestive organs, there may be diarrhoea, nausea and loss of appetite. These symptoms indicate that the back pain, which is part of the infection, is likely to go when the infection goes.

Kidney stones and kidney infections may also produce lower back pain, usually to the side but there, too, there are usually tell-tale symptoms, such as fever and pain on passing urine.

Women-There are some kinds of non-spinal back pain that are reserved for women. Displacements of the womb, such as uterine prolapse, resulting from the strains of childbirth, can in some cases produce pain in the lower back. So can fibroids (benign tumours) in the womb. Both conditions can be put right, usually by surgical measures.

But normal conditions, such as pregnancy and menstruation, can also give rise to back pain. In pregnancy, hormonal changes before childbirth cause ligaments to soften and slacken, and this can cause strain, particularly in the sacroiliac joints; the weight of the growing foetus also throws additional strain on the spine. In menstruation, period cramps are sometimes felt as referred pain in the structures of the back.

Stress-The mental stress caused by an attack of back pain can reinforce the effects of muscle spasm, and in turn be made worse by it, in a vicious circle. Muscle spasm is a possible result of tension.

A major problem is fear of pain, sometimes not so much fear of the pain itself as fear that it is really more serious than anyone supposes. The remedy then is to seek authoritative reassurance.

It also seems very probable that mental tension, stress and anxiety, unexpressed fears and worries can actually start off an attack of backache by increasing muscular tension throughout the body. (This also makes you more vulnerable to muscular and joint strain which may even lead to some sort of mechanical displacement.) There are cases in which stress-reducing measures, or perhaps counselling, rather than treatment is what is needed to relieve the pain.

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