Failure to appreciate that every back pain is different and that there are many reasons why back pain occurs leads to much confusion.
A form of treatment suitable for one problem may be useless for another so it is always necessary to try to determine the underlying cause.
Back pain is a symptom just as being short of breath is a symptom.
In thinking about how to treat breathlessness we would need to know whether the patient had bronchitis, asthma, tuberculosis, lung cancer, heart disease, or other problems.
In the same way we should always try to establish the cause of the back pain, although admittedly this can be extremely difficult.
Pain may be felt in the back due to disease in the back itself or it may be a result of some internal abnormality but felt in the back.
Gynaecological disorders may sometimes produce quite severe back symptoms and these are usually worse at the time of the menstrual periods.
There are a number of different broad groups of disorders of the spine that may lead to back pain.
They include mechanical and structural problems as already mentioned; inflammation, which can be the result of infection, or other inflammatory disorders such as ankylosing spondylitis or rheumatoid arthritis; disorders of the structure of the bones of the spine; and tumours of various sorts that may occur in and around the back.
The big problem is that there are many back sufferers in whom it is not possible to identify the cause of the symptoms.
If such patients are seen by different physicians and surgeons, physiotherapists, osteopaths, and chiropractors, they may be given various diagnosis and the terms used are often quite different.
A wide variety of different types of treatment may be offered.
The patient may be perplexed and become more confused with every specialist he sees.
The truth of the matter is that for many back problems, and particularly those that are relatively minor, it is not possible to identify the source of the problem.
Although words such as fibrositis, adhesions, sacro-iliac strain, lumbo-sacral strain, etc.
imply knowledge of what is actually wrong they have no scientific foundation and the various types of disorders have not been proven on examination of the spine by pathologists.
With this degree of uncertainty it is better to be honest to the patient and to oneself and label the problem as "non-specific back pain".
With newer diagnostic methods we are identifying with accuracy various problems within this group so that the number of patients in whom this uncertainty exists is slowly shrinking.
A form of treatment suitable for one problem may be useless for another so it is always necessary to try to determine the underlying cause.
Back pain is a symptom just as being short of breath is a symptom.
In thinking about how to treat breathlessness we would need to know whether the patient had bronchitis, asthma, tuberculosis, lung cancer, heart disease, or other problems.
In the same way we should always try to establish the cause of the back pain, although admittedly this can be extremely difficult.
Pain may be felt in the back due to disease in the back itself or it may be a result of some internal abnormality but felt in the back.
Gynaecological disorders may sometimes produce quite severe back symptoms and these are usually worse at the time of the menstrual periods.
There are a number of different broad groups of disorders of the spine that may lead to back pain.
They include mechanical and structural problems as already mentioned; inflammation, which can be the result of infection, or other inflammatory disorders such as ankylosing spondylitis or rheumatoid arthritis; disorders of the structure of the bones of the spine; and tumours of various sorts that may occur in and around the back.
The big problem is that there are many back sufferers in whom it is not possible to identify the cause of the symptoms.
If such patients are seen by different physicians and surgeons, physiotherapists, osteopaths, and chiropractors, they may be given various diagnosis and the terms used are often quite different.
A wide variety of different types of treatment may be offered.
The patient may be perplexed and become more confused with every specialist he sees.
The truth of the matter is that for many back problems, and particularly those that are relatively minor, it is not possible to identify the source of the problem.
Although words such as fibrositis, adhesions, sacro-iliac strain, lumbo-sacral strain, etc.
imply knowledge of what is actually wrong they have no scientific foundation and the various types of disorders have not been proven on examination of the spine by pathologists.
With this degree of uncertainty it is better to be honest to the patient and to oneself and label the problem as "non-specific back pain".
With newer diagnostic methods we are identifying with accuracy various problems within this group so that the number of patients in whom this uncertainty exists is slowly shrinking.