Back Pain
Clinical Guidelines divide Back Pain into:
‘Simple or Non-Specific Back Pain’, ‘Nerve Root Pain’ and ‘Serious Illness’.
At the Spine Team it is important at initial consultation to rule out Serious Illness as a cause for your back pain. Serious illness is a rare cause of back pain being present in less than 1% of cases; it is even more rare if back pain is your only symptom, you are otherwise well and you have no history of serious illness. Just because you have serious pain does not mean that you have a serious illness. Your Spine Team Practitioner will work with your GP to investigate any concerns to rule out serious illness, but if concerns persist facilitate referral to an appropriate specialist.
Low back pain can refer to the hip, groin or leg and neck pain can refer to the shoulder or arm, a proportion of these are due to Nerve Root Pain caused by an injury or disruption inside the spine (intra-spinal); this accounts for about 2% of all back pain. The presence of intra-spinal nerve root pain may increase the length of recovery with treatment or may need investigation. Your Spine Team Practitioner will look for symptoms and test for particular signs that will help determine whether you have nerve root pain and will explain the difficulties that may present or the investigations that are likely to help.
‘Simple’ or ‘Non-Specific’ Back Pain is by far
the most common type of back pain accounting for 97% of all cases. It can
be divided into ‘Acute’ if lasting less than 6 weeks or ‘Chronic’ if lasting for
more than 6 weeks or is deteriorating. Far from feeling ‘non-specific’ it
can feel very locally painful, and rather than ‘simple’ it can be severe,
difficult to control, very frightening and sometimes totally disabling. In
spite of this it is not at all serious if handled correctly. Your Spine
Team Practitioner will explain the problem to you and offer a combination of
treatment and advice which may include exercises and self management
plans.
