Sudden back pain can be a terrifying experience that might leave lasting psychoemotional and physical effects on its victims. How is it possible that such severe pain can come out of nowhere, rendering a person completely unable to move or function in any way?
Back pain is most often blamed on conditions that develop gradually over time, yet so many cases of pain occur spontaneously and severely. This fact makes any logical observer question the very sources on which pain is routinely blamed, such as spinal degeneration and various structural abnormalities. After all, if these conditions were to blame, wouldn’t the pain also occur gradually and worsen over time instead of hitting the person like a blitzkrieg attack of pure torture?
This interesting essay provides some thoughts on sudden back pain and why it truly occurs and why it is commonly blamed on incidental spinal structural issues.
Sudden Back Pain Expressions
Sudden pain might strike any area of the back or neck. However, it is most common and most debilitating when it occurs in the lumbar region. Lower back pain rates at the absolute top of all accepted pain scales, making it the most torturous condition a person can suffer from. Acute pain in the lower back is both agonizing and terrifying, since it can occur without warning and completely debilitate.
Pain might be limited to the back itself or might radiate into one or more limbs. Neck pain often affects one or both arms, while lower back pain often affects one or both legs. In addition to pain, the patients might suffer other related expressions, such as burning, tingling, numbness and/or weakness.
Sudden back pain might be most intense when it first occurs in some instances, but usually worsens with time over the first 24 to 48 hours before starting to get better. This is why so many cases of acute back pain are blamed on injury, even when no actual trauma has occurred.
Sudden Back Pain Blame Game
As mentioned above, injury is a common suspected source of pain, especially when the symptoms begin in association with some activity. It is certainly possible to injure the back and produce pain. However, in our experience, so many cases of back injury are blamed on incidental and innocent activities, such as minor falls, strain from physical exertion, exercise or static positioning.
When pain endures past the point of 2 days or more, diagnostic evaluation typically will ensue. In virtually all cases, pain not blamed directly on injury will instead be linked to some structural abnormality in the spine, such as disc degeneration, a herniated disc, spinal osteoarthritis or some alteration is spinal form, curvature or functionality. Medical science has arbitrarily and illogically associated structural change of age with the existence of spinal pathology and pain. This association is one of the worst blunders of modern healthcare science.
In other cases, blame will be laid on various soft tissue conditions, such as muscular strain, imbalances and idiopathic origins of muscular pain, like fibromyalgia and myofascial pain. These theories are typically even less enlightened than the spinal origin theory detailed above and lack evidence of their existence in virtually every case. These conditions are created and industry of “guess medicine” that has caused catastrophic negative effects on our modern society and population.
Sudden Back Pain Truths
The truth of sudden back pain is that it is most often non-structurally motivated. It comes on suddenly and at the least opportune times for very good reason and through a very devious process of the mindbody interactions. Ischemia is most often the process that causes the pain and it is well known that regional ischemia can produce devastating symptomology in an incredibly short time frame virtually anywhere in the body.
Ischemia can affect every tissue type, including muscle, nerve and all bodily systems. It can also affect the actual chemistry of the body by affecting the brain and the various tissues that produce organic chemicals in the anatomy.
When we see examples of horrific intractable back pain that occur suddenly and without obvious explanation, we tend to think ischemia right away, since this is the diagnosis that tends to make the most sense time after time. We know that our speculation is correct, since treatment for the structural problems detailed above almost never seems to work, while treatment for ischemia tends to cure the pain now and forever…
So what is ischemia and why does it occur? We detail the condition in its entirety in 2 dedicated essays covering ischemia and its consequence oxygen deprivation back pain. To learn more, we highly suggest reading these essays and using the information to guide your future decisions on how to treat your own sufferings.
