Learning About Some of the Lower Back Pain Causes

There are many possible causes of lower back pain, making it very difficult to effectively diagnose such a condition for appropriate treatments. With a large percentage of the world population suffering from pain in the lower back area in any given year, it is important to learn to recognized some of these lower back pain causes.

Among the more obvious causes of pain in the lower area of the back are muscle strains, pulls, and tears. These typically happen when lifting too much weight, moving in an awkward fashion, or moving suddenly when the muscles are stiff. In fact, the causes are often a combination of the above, occurring in a single instance. However, many other types of pain in the back area could be attributed to such instances simply for lack of a more recognizable cause.

Regardless of whether the pain in your back is acute or chronic, seeing your doctor is an important step to take. While most back pains have relatively innocuous causes, there are some serious health conditions that can result in lower back pain and even innocuous pains can be debilitating without appropriate treatment.

Back pain becomes more likely the older we get. However, this appears to be greatly related to a corresponding tendency to lower fitness levels as we age. In other words, if your bones or muscles are getting weaker as you age, as is the case for most people, you will become more susceptible to a variety of conditions that cause pain in the back. Weaker, less flexible bones and muscles make us more susceptible to pulls, strains, tears, and fractures. To add insult to the back injury, it takes a lot longer for our body to heal as we get older.

Other common injuries that become even more common as we age are nerve damage, compression, and shifts. These can all be extremely painful. They can be made more likely and more severe if you allow your fitness levels to decline and maintain improper posture on a regular basis.

An old misconception is that bed rest will cure pain in the back. There are a some lower back pain causes for which this is true, but this is not true for the majority of causes. In fact, too much time spent lying down or sitting during the day is a common cause of pain in the lower area of the back. Exercise is a more common treatment for such pain than bed rest, but the proper treatment for you will be determined based on the diagnosis made by your doctor.