How To Understand The Causes Of Back Pain

My name is Dirk Laubscher, and I've been a physiotherapist for the last 10 years and working in Harley Street for the last 6. Today, I'm going to talk about the causes and the management of back pain. How to understand the causes of back pain: Now, for this section, I would just like to use the skeleton or spine just to explain where back pain can come from.

Usually, to understand it, you have to understand what your spine is comprised of. Basically, you've got the vertebral bodies, and in between each vertebral body, you've got a disk. So, the function of the disk is for shock absorption.

Now, pain can normally come from the actual disk or the facet joint which is the joint between the two vertebrae or it could actually be coming from the nerve if it gets pinched, it can be coming from muscle spasm. Whenever you hurt your back, your muscles will go into spasm to protect it. But the main underlying cause of all this is usually weakness.

Spinal weakness - meaning the muscles behind and in front of the spine are weak. If your stomach muscles are weak, this causes a lot more pressure on your lower back and the risk of injuring yourself by lifting something and twisting (bending down, picking up your handbag, sneezing for example) increases. All that stuff can actually cause your facet joints to lock up or your disk to actually slip.

Basically, those are the actually physical structures that can actually cause back pain. Another big cause of back pain is bad posture. Posture is such a commonly used name but it is very important, and bad posture causes a lot of back pain.

Slouching, sitting badly at the desk, computer work, stretching out, lying in front of the television, driving, walking badly, all these types of things put pressure on the back and again you would get back pain from all of this. A couple of other things that can cause back pain are also tight hamstrings - people miss that sometimes. It is very important to stretch your hamstrings.

Also, if you are overweight, the more weight you carry, the more strain on your back. And the third thing is your feet. For example, if you have flat feet, that will put pressure on your knees, your hips, and ultimately your back which can cause you pain. .