Back Pain Causes

The Back Pain Revolution (Waddell l 1998), was written to educate doctors on the complexity of back pain and its causes. Professor Waddell described a “Triage” system for back pain; quite simply he divided back pain into three sections.

• Simple Backache
• Nerve Root Pain
• Serious Spinal Disease

Simple backache can affect any one of us, at any time, at some point in our lives. It may be as a result of spending too much time in the garden, or twisting the lower back in an awkward way, or just lifting. Back pain may also occur spontaneously, you may not be able to think of a significant event that may have caused it.

Nerve root pain, which is mostly associated with the name Sciatica, is often a pain that starts from the middle of a buttock, down the back of the thigh to the knee, and into the calf and the top of the foot. This type of pain comes from pressure on the “nerve root”.

Serious spinal disease accounts for less than one percept of back pain seen by doctors. It is extremely rare. Tumours, infections of the bones in the spine and inflammatory diseases account for most cases of serious spinal diseases. You must always consult your GP as your first line of defence when trying to locate the cause of your back pain…