Back and pain management treatment is one of the most effective remedies for musculoskeletal disorders, back pain, spinal issues, and muscle spasms — all of which are closely related and require special medical expertise.
You can suffer from musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) when you experience pain in your muscles, bones, joints, or tendons. About 80 percent of people experience back pain at some point during their lives, making it the most common MSD and oftentimes requiring lower back pain management and treatment.
Back and Pain Management for Musculoskeletal Disorders
Back pain can be caused by a variety of factors, which usually leads patients to integrate a steady routine of back and pain management into their lives.
Injuries, such as falls or car accidents, can result in back pain. You can also experience back pain if you repeatedly use your back in the same way over and over again. Poor posture can also cause pain in the muscles and joints of the back.
In older people, the discs in their spine can break down, causing back pain. You may also experience back pain if you suffer from conditions such as arthritis or osteoporosis, making spinal pain management even more important as you age.
It’s common for older adults to suffer from musculoskeletal disorders due to a variety of factors. There are also certain occupations that are more likely to lead to MSDs, including those in construction and manufacturing. Depending on your genes, you may be at a greater risk for developing MSDs. In addition, obesity can increase your risk of MSDs by putting extra strain on your muscles and joints. Finally, smoking and a lack of exercise can damage your muscles and joints, increasing your risk.
Reducing Spinal Pain
Many patients find that reducing spinal pain through routine back and pain management is an optimal health and lifestyle choice. The term refers to a wide range of treatments for spinal pain. Bones, joints, ligaments, muscles, and nerves make up your spine. Injuries, inflammation, and degenerative changes can cause pain anywhere in the spine. In order to treat spinal pain, a variety of treatments are available. Individual patients will require a different treatment depending on the cause of their pain. A common choice in handling spinal pain include a lower back pain management specialist diagnosing your condition and discussing treatment options with you.
Lower back pain management treatments are available in a variety of effective forms. You will begin to feel better sooner if you start treatment right away.
Your Spinal Structure: Back and Pain Management
To understand the benefits of back and pain management, you must first understand the makeup of your spine. The spinal column (vertebral column) supports the entire structure and nervous system of your body. A spinal column has 34 bones that hold the body upright, yet also allow it to bend and twist easily while transmitting nerve signals from your brain to your toes.
There are four parts to the spinal column:
- Cervical spine: The shoulders, esophagus, diaphragm, part of the chest, and arms.
- Thoracic spine: Areas of your esophagus, trachea, arms, liver, gallbladder, small intestine, heart, and lungs.
- Lumbar spine: Your lower extremities (feet and legs).
- Sacrum: Sexual organs, bowels, and bladder.
Conversations with your doctor or health specialist around the history and development of back and pain management will underscore the importance of healthy spinal column support. Under the last lumbar vertebra, there’s a triangular-shaped bone called a “sacrum.” In the pelvis, the sacrum sits between the hip bones. On both sides, the sacroiliac joints (SI joints) connect the sacrum to the pelvis.
At adulthood, three to five small bones naturally fuse together to form the coccyx (or tailbone). It’s the tailbone that supports your weight when you sit, even though it’s small.
The spinal column isn’t just bones. To maintain its shape, support the skeleton, and route nerves, the spine also relies on a bunch of supporting structures. Discs, vertebrae, and facet joints are connected by strong, tough ligaments. In a limited range, ligaments let bones, discs, and joints move. Small and large spinal muscles and tendons stabilize and strengthen your spinal column while supporting and restricting extreme bends, flexes, and twists.
For those needing it, spinal pain management is oftentimes the best solution to your lower back issues.
Musculoskeletal Facts: Back and Pain Management
By 2013 and since then, back pain became the most common cause of health care visits among musculoskeletal disorders in the United States, leading many to seek professional back and pain management treatment. Back pain was diagnosed on almost one-quarter of Americans in that year and many subsequent years. Non-invasive spine treatment has also increased, such as lower back pain management and related treatment and procedures.
Over the past few years, the number of physician office visits for back pain has increased substantially, becoming the reason for nearly 75 percent of those office visits. In addition to previous years’ statistics, this is a significant increase. There were 32 million visits in 1998, 45 million in 2004, and over 57 million in 2013.
The number of people going to the doctor for lower back pain management has steadily increased since then, along with the share of the population who suffer from it. According to a 1998 survey, about 12 of every 100 doctor visits were attributed to back pain. In 2004, this number increased to 15 people per 100 visits. Since 2008, the ratio has fallen slightly, but by 2013, it has reached 18. Low back pain accounted for most of the increase.
Breaking Down the Numbers
Females made up 58 percent of back pain health care visits, but their total number of back pain visits per 100 patients was slightly lower than that of males. Patients aged 45 to 64 were diagnosed with back pain at the highest rate of approximately 10 per 100 visits, but people age 65 and older had the highest rate of 44 per 100 visits.
Across racial groups and geographic regions, back and pain management visits per 100 patients were similar. Non-Hispanic whites and northerners had the highest rates (23 and 30). The U.S. Bone and Joint Initiative collects and publishes many of these helpful statistics.
Also Important: Your Muscle Health
Muscle spasms in your back may occur occasionally, which is another area that proper back and pain management can help remedy. Depending on how you look at it, it may be light, in the middle, or pretty bad. Is that telling you anything about your body or your habits?
Muscle spasms in the back can range from mild discomfort and stiffness to sharp and severe pain, as well as muscle tightening that prevents you from moving. If you’re experiencing back discomfort or pain, it’s an indication there is a serious problem in your spine that needs to be addressed through effective spinal pain management.
Spasms in the Back
Spasms in the back often subside on their own. It is possible that you will see them again, but it is also possible that you will not. Depending on the cause, the situation at hand will differ. The severity of arthritis, for example, usually increases over time. When an individual is willing to try different medications, his or her symptoms may improve. Nevertheless, having lower back spasms that won’t go away is painful, frustrating, and calls for a lower back pain management plan.
The first step in treating your back muscle spasms with back and pain management treatment is to get an accurate diagnosis. A variety of factors can cause these types of spasms. The muscles use it as a way to protect themselves. Muscle, tendon, and ligament injuries can cause back spasms. This type of soft tissue injury usually results in muscle spasms lasting one to two weeks.
Muscle spasms can also be caused by anatomical problems. Back spasms may be a sign of an underlying anatomical problem in your spine if they don’t go away after a week or two. Disc degeneration, spinal stenosis, herniated discs, and osteoarthritis of the facet joints can cause back spasms.
Further, muscle spasms tend to repeat whenever the spine is inflamed or unstable. In addition to treating the symptoms through back and pain management techniques, you may want to seek medical attention for the underlying problem.
Wellness and Pain
When it comes to back and pain management, you’re better off seeing a specialist who truly cares about you and your health. An evaluation may include nerve and muscle testing (NCV/EMG) to evaluate for any problems relating to nerves or muscles, as well as blood flow and/or circulation ultrasound, massage treatment, acupuncture, or trigger point injections.
Practitioners at Wellness and Pain confidently provide these important evaluations, apply their professional expertise, and offer the caring and sensitive back and pain management treatment you need to improve any symptoms you are experiencing.
