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Lower Back Pain Q & A
- What causes lower back pain?
- How is lower back pain treated?
- Will I need surgery for lower back pain?
Lower back pain is frequently due to muscle or tendon strains from lifting, twisting, sports injuries, or overuse. Poor posture can play a part, too. One of the most common reasons for developing chronic lower back pain is the way your body changes as part of the aging process.
Conditions the Town Center Orthopaedics team sees most frequently include:
Disc problems
Degenerative disc disease is a condition in which the shock-absorbing discs between your vertebrae slowly dry out, becoming thinner and more rigid. That might cause few if any symptoms at first but can lead to herniated discs and spinal stenosis (narrowing of the spinal column), which, in turn, causes painful radiculopathy (pinched nerves).
Lumbar radiculopathy or sciatica is a widespread cause of lower back pain due to pressure on the sciatic nerve. It causes pain in your hip and buttock that often travels down one leg.
Arthritis
Osteoarthritis is the type of arthritis that’s most likely to be the cause of lower back pain. It’s another age-related condition, developing after years of wear-and-tear on your spine, which causes the facet joints that link your vertebrae to lose their protective cartilage.
As a result, the bones start rubbing together, causing chronic inflammation and pain. You might also develop bone spurs – little bony growths in your facet joints that your body produces to support arthritic vertebrae. Bone spurs are another common cause of spinal stenosis.
Degenerative changes can also cause conditions like spondylolisthesis, in which weakened ligaments in your spine allow the vertebrae to slide over each other.
To begin with, the Town Center Orthopaedics team is likely to use conservative treatment measures to address the cause of your lower back pain and relieve the symptoms.
Physical therapy is vital to addressing most causes of lower back pain. You could benefit from hot and cold treatments, massage, electrical stimulation, and therapeutic ultrasound, as well as stretching and strengthening exercises. Medication might also be necessary.
Techniques like joint mobilization and manipulation, soft tissue manipulation, and posture reeducation are also valuable treatments for lower back pain.
If these methods prove unsuccessful in resolving your lower back pain, the Town Center Orthopaedics team also provides injectable treatments and other advanced interventions, including:
- Epidural steroid injections
- Facet joint injections
- Trigger point injections
- Radiofrequency ablation
- Piriformis muscle injections
- Sympathetic nerve blocks
- Spinal cord stimulation
Regenerative medicine techniques like platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections, stem cell therapy, prolotherapy, and Clarix® Flo placental tissue are also valuable in helping damaged tissues to heal.
If no other treatments are working after at least six months, surgery may be necessary for your lower back pain, providing the cause of the pain is identifiable. Options include:
- Spinal fusion
- Disk replacement
- Discectomy
- Microdiscectomy
- Laminectomy
- Foraminotomy
Where suitable, your surgeon performs these procedures using minimally invasive techniques to reduce tissue damage and shorten recovery time.
For expert relief from lower back pain, call Town Center Orthopaedics today or book an appointment online.
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