After giving an introduction on “Pain” in last issue, let’s discuss on back pain. Almost 70 80% of world population suffers back or neck pain at some stage during their life time.90% people who experience low back pain for the first time get better in two to six weeks but 20-30% people with low back pain develop chronic back problems.
Back pain depends on different extrinsic as well as intrinsic factors. Extrinsic factors are: Age more than 30yrs, pregnancy, stressed or depressed conditions, bad posture, heavy physical labor, frequent bending and twisting, lifting heavy material, continuous driving (vibration),continuous sitting in front of computer, repetitive work (athletes), sedentary office work, smoking (frequent cough could be a cause of intervertebral disc related back pain as smoking reduces blood supply to vertebra), increased body height (male> 180cm and female > 170cm are commonly suffering) and body mass (obesity) and last but not least is genetic predisposition: 7% positive family history in young patients.
Whereas intrinsic factors are related to different structures in back and neck, i.e. vertebra and their joints (facet joints arthritis), intervertebral disc prolapse (slip disc) with nerve root compression, sacroiliac joint pain (after multiple pregnancy), muscle spasm, tail bone pain (coccydynea), etc.
Self-treatment or primary treatment with analgesics, muscle relaxants, hot compression, rest or physiotherapy or massage may help in many patients unless any major injury is the cause of pain, otherwise if pain persists for more than a month or if the pain radiates to hand or legs, you should contact orthopedic or pain physician to rule out the proper cause and to treat accordingly.
Before the inception of “Interventional Pain Therapy”, surgery was mandatory for these kinds of spine related problems where conservative therapy is not supporting. It is also seen that more than 50% back surgery patients come back again with back related problems immediately or after sometimes.
That’s why different types of interventional therapies were developed after proper research where without major operation, according to MRI reports, therapy can be given inside the spine under radiological guidance by which most of the patient recovers with minimum time and long term complications can be avoided which created after surgery.