Low Back Pain

Low back pain is one of the most common reason (after flu) prompting patients to visit their primary care doctors. Unfortunately there are millions of young people and old people suffer from low back pain on a daily basis. Indeed low back pain is considered to be the most common cause of disability among young people (less then 45 years old). Truck drivers, nurses, bus drivers and construction workers are among some who have the higher probability of suffering from chronic low back pain.

There are many pain generators in the lumbar spine and sometimes it could be very challenging to differentiate what might be causing your low back pain. Primary care physicians are usually not equipped to diagnose and treat low back pain effectively and may choose to refer the patient to chiropractor, PT or spine specialist or pain specialist. Most patients will respond well to physical therapy and/or chiropractic treatment. However some will continue to suffer from chronic low back pain. A spine surgeon may recommend back surgery if needed, however some patients may not be candidate for back surgeries depending on their condition.

As pain specialists our primary goal is to find a specific pain generator in the spine that might be causing your symptoms. Sometimes there might be more then one pain generator. Once we are able to diagnose what might be causing your symptoms we can treat you in a more effective way. On most occasions there may not be a single treatment to treat a specific back condition and your doctor may recommend several treatment options, which may work better when combined together. Such as, your doctor may recommend epidural steroid injection and refer you to physical therapy after your injection. The idea is that when your pain is better, you may be able to do better in physical therapy and rehabilitate your back and condition and strengthen your back and core muscles.