Acute Back Pain Defined

I think we’re finding in our talk here today, it’s hard to compartmentalize it. And so what let’s do is let’s talk about the various four compartments that we’ve defined and we’ll talk about each individual one and we’ll talk about what’s causing the pain. what a rational approach to it is, and then further on in our discussions we’ll talk about when surgical intervention is potentially a thing to do? Also such things as injections and also such things as physical therapy and chiropractic. So let’s first start with just talking about acute back pain and this is, Gee, I’ve been out in the yard and I’ve got the ax and I’m putting in the sprinkler system and oh my gosh, I straight up and the world is coming to an end because it feels like every muscle in my back is spasming. This is not a function of the discs. This is not a function of the bony overgrowth. This is not a function of the arthritis. This is a function of the muscles reaching a point that they’ve been exercised, they’ve been utilized and they’ve been gotten into either a position that they don’t like or a position that’s unfamiliar to them and they’ve gone into spasm. And it’s pain then it spasm, which triggers more pain, which triggers more spasm. And it’s sort of like looking at a swirling amount of water. Things are just going downhill rapidly, but the treatment is fairly rational. The problem is, is that your average person really lets it go a long time. And will say, oh, it’s just going to get better. But there’s a triad of early intervention, which not only can abort the episode, but can take the peak off, make it shorter, which is exactly what you want to do. And it’s called brace, ice, anti-inflammatory. So let’s talk about that treatment of acute muscular tenderness, low back pain. And it goes without saying that we’ve talked in that it is muscles, ligaments, and tendons, not the other structures, the discs, the bones that we need to be worried about.