What are the causes of Lower Back pain?
Back pain is one of the common problems people face in their day to day lives. In fact, the sedentary lifestyle of today’s era has contributed immensely to it. People are working in their home or offices by sitting on their chairs for the whole day. Your back is under stress continuously.
Your back has many different components which include your spine which further consists of the spinal cord (extension of nerves from your brain), vertebral column (bony covering of your spinal cord) and your back muscles including their individual nerves and blood vessels.
So problem in any of the above components can result in backache.
What are various medical conditions that are the causes of Lower Back pain?
There is a long list of conditions which can cause backache.
Some of the common ones are:
1. Cervical Disc Disease (it’s the disease of the disc which is present in the neck region). The disc is the cushioning pad present between 2 vertebrae.
2. Degenerative Spine Disease – These set of diseases cause damage to your spine. Your spine may get compressed inside its bony covering (the medical term is Spinal Stenosis)
3. Infection of Spine – Infection of any component of the spine can be the cause of a backache. In fact, your spine can get infected from the infection of the blood or brain or from any other body part.
If the infection is affecting bones it is known as osteomyelitis. Meningitis is a term used when covering of brain gets infected. These meninges or covering extend from the brain to the spinal cord.
4. Tumours – In extreme cases, a developing tumour can be the cause of a backache. Tumour will compress your spine and deprives normal tissues of nutrition due to which they will start dying.
5. Fractures – They can be traumatic (like falling from stairs or involved in an accident) or atraumatic (due to weakening of bones). Bones can get weak with age or medical conditions like osteoporosis, osteomyelitis.
6. Minor Trauma like sprain/strain while playing or doing any physical activity can also result in backache.
7. Metabolic diseases like thyroid problems, Paget’s disease can also cause backache.
8.Birth defects – Some babies are born with birth defects like Spondylolysis, kyphoscoliosis, spina bifida etc. These will cause backache in all ages of life.
9. Certain autoimmune conditions which cause inflammation of your spine, disc or muscles can cause you annoying backache.
10. Referred pain – Not only you can get backache from spine diseases but pain can be due to conditions affecting other parts of the body. It is known as referred pain i.e pain is coming from another place.
11. Postural Habits – One of the most common causes of backache is bad posture. Keep your back straight while working on your chair. You can get a chair with good back support.
12. Not so physical – That’s right. You can get backache even when you worry a lot, or under some psychological stress. Try to stay tension free. Do some meditation, watch something funny to relieve some stress.
