Back Pain Symptoms
Physical pain is a problem that can hinder the normal life cycle of a person and when this pain is in a region as important as spine or back, then problem becomes even more complex. Back pain symptoms can have many underlying causes, including structural problems, acquired diseases or conditions, and sprains or fractures. This is why it is extremely important that before opting for a back pain treatment option, you get to the root cause of the problem and then take up treatment as advised by the doctor.
Symptoms and Types of Back Pain
Most of the time back pain is categorized into three different categories. These are acute pain, chronic pain, and neuropathic pain.
Let us briefly take a look at these categories and see what back pain symptoms can help you define under which category you fall.
Acute Pain: This type of pain is usually the one that occurs for a short duration of time and lasts less than 3 to 6 months. Acute pain is alternatively defined as a pain that is caused by tissue damage.
Chronic Pain: This pain continues for a long period of time. One needs to understand that the when a pain lasts for a long period of time it becomes susceptible to influences like the ongoing pain signal input to the nervous system which slowly causes the problem to grow and enter the category of chronic pain. Chronic pain is usually categorized in two ways: pain cause by an identifiable pain generator like injury or accident and chronic pain with no identifiable pain generator like fibromyalgia and failed back surgery syndrome.
Neuropathic Pain: This term has come into being quite recently and is usually used to define a pain that is there even when all signs of the cause of pain like an injury are gone. Neuropathic pain is caused when nerves keep sending pain signals to the brain even when the original tissue damage or cause is long gone.
Back Pain Treatment
There are several back pain treatment options available and the doctors will advice you a treatment looking at the severity of your problem. Treatment options for back pain include:
- Medication
- Chiropractic Care
- Physiotherapy
- Back pain surgery
- TENS and IDET for back pain
- Minimally Invasive Spinal Surgery