Back Pain – Overview

Transcript

Sometimes muscle problems can be prolonged and then we have to engage the patient in physical therapy. Sometimes we support that physical therapy with injections into the muscles to force the muscles to relax and kind of reset if you will. But the key again is the physical therapy. Often the problems can be the spine itself. You can have injuries to the ligaments that help hold the spinal vertebrae in sync with each other in good alignment, one on top of another. The joints that allow the vertebrae to be in sync yet flex and extend backwards and forward or even side to side. These can become inflamed. They can become injured. The ligaments can be injured. The tendons where the muscles connect to the spine can become injured. And then each vertebra is separated from its neighbor, by a disc. A disc is basically a shock absorber, but they’re kind of the structure of a jelly donut. So they have a soft squishy inside, which can protrude outward and cause a disc herniation that can, first of all, the insides of it are chemicals that are irritating to the nerves, inflammatory. But even physically, they can press against nerves and cause pain to radiate down a nerve into a arm or a leg. When it goes into the leg that’s often referred to as Sciatica, we call it radiculopathy. It can also shoot if if the problem is in the neck, the pain may shoot down into the arm.