Finding lasting lower back pain relief is harder to do than winning the lottery jackpot, twice. The most common of all dorsopathy concerns is certainly chronic low back pain. Patients must endure horrible pain and possible neurological symptoms, while searching for anything that might bring some semblance of relief.
Lower back pain is the second leading explanation for a visit to a doctor. It is also the number one reason for a person to be absent from work. More than 85% of people will experience some moderate to severe low back pain at some point in their lives. There is an epidemic of chronic lower back pain today and it continues to grow without an end in sight.
What makes low back issues so difficult to relieve?
Lower Back Pain Relief Problems
Often times, low back pain is misdiagnosed: There may be a left side herniated disc, but the patient feels pain on the right side and right leg. There may be a ruptured disc, but the condition has already extruded, calcified and stabilized without affecting any nerves. Disc degeneration may be present, but that is completely normal in the lumbar spinal region of any adult.
Research has clearly shown that a vast selection of lower back conditions might come from a source that is not easy or even always possible to diagnose. This is due to the difficulty of differentiating actual causative structural concerns from pure scapegoats and a plethora of possible nonstructural source processes.
Lower Back Pain and Sciatica Relief
The pain might originate in the lower back, but many patients also suffer neurological effects down one or both legs. The usual cause involves one or more nerve roots that eventually meet to form the sciatic nerve being affected and therefore causing a wide range of possible symptoms in the legs and/or feet.
The common misconception with sciatica is that a herniated disc, or other spinal abnormality, is pinching the sciatic nerve itself. This is anatomically impossible, since this nerve does not actually join the spine directly. Remember that the nerve roots can be influenced by direct compression, such as in the case of spinal stenosis, or by nonstructural ischemia. Both can have dire effects on the sciatic nerve.
The majority of patients do not know that their actual spinal cord does not even exist in much of the lumbar spine. The spinal cord ends in the lower thoracic spine or the upper lumbar spine and the nerve roots continue into the lumbar area of the back. This area is called the cauda equina or horse’s tail.
Lower lumbar injuries will not typically cause paralysis, but can still cause some significant effects. Cauda equina syndrome is one of the worst possibilities and can be a medical emergency.
Advice on Lower Back Pain Relief
Lumbar back pain relief was my only dream for 18 years of suffering. I realized this goal for a time, but was once again struck down by horrible symptoms in more recent years. The pain in my lower back was at one time quite unbearable and prevented me from enjoying a consistently good quality of life. Now I am used to it, as it is a daily unwelcomed companion.
I am a strong believer in the nocebo effect that medical science has caused in many affected patients. The average person views the lower back region as fragile and susceptible to injury. The lower back is not a delicate structure!
Study the huge volume of chronic low back complaints that exist now and you will know that something is amiss. The huge incidence of low back pain is a recent problem that started within the last 70 years. I do not think that millions of years of evolution suddenly went all wrong.
Statistics also show that many patients fare better without seeking professional care for their pain. European studies rate the effectiveness of no treatment as higher in resolving pain faster and more completely than any specific treatment. Really scary…
Learn more about your pain and the possible sources of it. Learn about the possible treatments before agreeing to any one specific choice. Most of all, understand that back pain can be more (or less) than it appears to be. Not everything in life is as simple as identifying a theorized cause in the form of some irregularity and then simply treating it to elicit a perfect cure. If this was the case, back pain would be no more. Remember, doctors obsess over all these structural concerns, but despite treating them year after year, most patients simply do not ever find the impossible dream of lower back pain relief.
