|
Back pain is a common ailment that affects 80-85% of people some time in their lives. The severity can range from mild discomfort to major disability. Some of the numerous potential causes of back pain include poor lifting technique, overuse, and trauma. There are a wide variety of factors that can contribute to back pain. To successfully treat back pain, these factors must be identified and treated as they affect each individual.
Most cases of back pain can be attributed to what is called dysfunction. This means that the joints, muscles, and nervous system are not performing their job at optimum efficiency.
Joint Dysfunction:
Joint dysfunction occurs when one of the joints in the spine or limbs loses its normal resiliency and shock absorption capacity. When a joint develops joint dysfunction, its normal range of movement is affected and the joint can become painful. In addition, because the joint contains receptors, the dysfunction can cause abnormal signals to be sent to the central nervous system that can cause the muscles related to that joint to either become tense or, conversely, to become limp.
Muscle Dysfunction:
Some muscles respond to joint dysfunction by becoming tense and overactive, while others respond by becoming limp and underactive. In either case, one thing that can happen in these muscles is the development of trigger points, areas of congestion within the muscle where toxins accumulate. These toxins can irritate the nerve endings within the muscle and produce pain. Because the joints and muscles contain a great number of nerve receptors, joint and muscle dysfunction can cause abnormal neurological signals to be sent into the central nervous system. This can then cause disruption of the ability of the nervous system to properly regulate muscles in other parts of the body, leading to the development of faulty movement patterns.
Faulty Movement Patterns:
Faulty movement patterns occur when the individual muscles that produce a certain body movement do not properly cooperate with each other to ensure that the movement occurs in a smooth and painless manner. This causes increased strain in the muscles and joints, leading to pain. These faulty movement patterns can involve the back itself, or can arise from dysfunction in other areas of the body such as the foot or pelvis.
Disc Derangement:
Sometimes these joint and muscle dysfunctions and faulty movement patterns put strain on the discs that are positioned between the vertebrae and small tears in the disc can develop. These small tears can allow the gel that is held in the middle of the disc to seep out into these tears and irritate the nerve endings in the outer portion of the disc. This is known as disc derangement. Occasionally, but uncommonly, this gel can seep all the way out and press on one of the nerve roots that exit the spinal cord in front of the disc. This is known as disc herniation. When this happens, pain in the back as well as in the leg can develop, along with neurological symptoms such as numbness, tingling and muscle weakness.
