By Henry Ready 04/11/2024 Areas

Back Pain: Causes, Symptoms, and Treatment

Struggling with Back Pain?

Back pain can significantly impact daily life, making even simple activities such as sitting, standing, or walking uncomfortable. If left untreated, it can worsen over time, affecting work, sleep, and overall quality of life.

At Recover Physio, we specialise in diagnosing and treating back pain, helping you restore mobility, ease discomfort, and regain confidence in movement. Through expert physiotherapy, tailored treatment plans, and proven techniques, we guide you towards a pain-free life.

What is Back Pain?

Back pain is a common condition that varies in intensity and duration. It can be caused by lifestyle factors, muscle strain, injury, or underlying medical conditions. Understanding the type of back pain you have is essential for effective treatment:

Lower Back Pain: Occurs between the bottom of the ribs and the buttocks, often due to strain, injury, or medical conditions.
Upper Back Pain: Affects the area between the base of the neck and the bottom of the ribcage, often resulting from muscle strain, poor posture, or spinal issues.
Acute Back Pain: Sudden pain that usually lasts a few days to weeks and is often caused by strains, herniated discs, or spinal conditions.
Chronic Back Pain: Persistent pain lasting more than three months, which can severely impact daily activities and overall well-being.
Neuropathic Pain: Results from nerve irritation or compression, causing symptoms such as burning, tingling, sharp, or shooting pain, which may radiate to the limbs.

Who Can Get Back Pain?

Back pain can affect anyone regardless of their age or lifestyle – age alone is not a diagnosis. If it were, how could an 80-year-old run a marathon while a 50-year-old struggles to walk to the shops due to back pain? A good physiotherapist will never tell you that back pain is related to your age.

Failing to address the impacts of back pain can have significant influences on patients’ mental health. Those suffering from back pain can find that they need to limit social activities, hobbies, and interactions, which can lead to feelings of isolation. A lack of engagement with others can have further impacts on mental health challenges such as loneliness and depression.

Back pain can also affect our sleep quality. Waking in the night due to pain can lead to irritability, fatigue, cognitive difficulties, as well as hinder the body’s ability to repair itself.

When to Seek Medical Attention

While most back pain cases resolve with treatment, severe symptoms may indicate serious conditions requiring urgent evaluation. Seek medical attention if you experience:

Numbness or tingling in the buttocks, thighs, or genitals
Difficulty controlling urination or bowel movements
Weakness or numbness in both legs
Severe pain following an injury or accident

Common Causes of Back Pain

Back pain can stem from various factors, and identifying the root cause is crucial for effective treatment. Some common causes include:

Poor Posture: Long periods of hunching or incorrect sitting positions can strain the spine and lead to musculoskeletal pain.
Sedentary Lifestyle: Lack of movement and prolonged sitting can weaken back muscles, reducing flexibility and increasing pain risk.
Muscle Strain: Overstretching muscles during physical activities or lifting heavy objects improperly can cause localized pain.
Medical Conditions: Issues such as herniated discs, arthritis, spinal stenosis, and scoliosis can lead to chronic back pain.
Improper Exercise Techniques: Incorrect form during workouts, such as weightlifting, can cause severe muscle strain and injury.

How Physiotherapy Treats Back Pain

Physiotherapy is one of the most effective treatments for back pain, addressing both symptoms and underlying causes. Treatment strategies include:

Manual Therapy: Hands-on techniques like joint mobilisation and soft tissue massage to relieve tension and improve mobility.
Personalised Exercise Programmes: Strengthening and stretching exercises to correct postural imbalances and enhance spinal support.
Neurodynamic Exercises: Techniques to improve nerve mobility and reduce compression or irritation.
Postural Education: Guidance on proper ergonomics, body mechanics, and workstation setup to prevent future pain.

Additional Therapies

Massage Therapy: Helps release tension, improve range of motion, and promote relaxation.
Ergonomic Adjustments: Simple changes, such as adjusting chair height and maintaining proper posture, can significantly reduce strain on the back.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does a physio do for back pain?

A physiotherapist first conducts a thorough assessment to diagnose the root cause of your back pain, rather than just treating the symptoms. Treatment is a hands-on process, often involving manual therapy, joint mobilisation, and soft tissue techniques to relieve tension and restore movement. We then create a personalised exercise programme, including strengthening and stretching, to correct imbalances and improve your spinal support. Our goal is to get you moving confidently again and provide the education to help prevent the pain from returning.

How can you tell if back pain is muscle or disc?

It can be difficult to distinguish without a professional assessment, but the symptoms often differ. Muscular pain typically feels like a localised ache, throb, or tightness, often linked to a specific strain or overuse. Disc-related pain (like a herniated disc) often involves nerve irritation, which may cause sharper, shooting pains, tingling, or numbness that radiates into the buttocks or legs (neuropathic pain). A full diagnosis from your physiotherapist is the best way to be certain.

Is physio or massage better for back pain?

They serve different purposes and often work best together. Deep tissue massage is an excellent therapy for relieving muscular tension, reducing pain, and promoting relaxation. Physiotherapy, however, includes a full diagnostic assessment to find the root cause of the pain. It then combines hands-on manual therapy (which can include massage techniques) with a tailored rehabilitation programme of specific exercises to ensure a more permanent recovery.

What are the “big three” exercises for back pain?

While you might see generic “big three” exercises mentioned online, we don’t believe in a “one-size-fits-all” solution for back pain. The most effective exercises are those prescribed after a thorough assessment has identified the specific cause of your problem. Your physiotherapist will create a personalised exercise programme tailored to your unique diagnosis, addressing your specific patterns of weakness, stiffness, or imbalance. This targeted approach is much safer and more effective than following a generic list.