What to do with a lower back injury

Low back pain is a common phenomenon, which occurs frequently in adults regardless of age. There may be many reasons-from physiological factors to diseases. Sometimes back pain appears briefly and disappears quickly. However, pain in the waist area may be a sign of serious illness, and in these cases, it is urgent to see a doctor.

Reason

There are many reasons for acute lower back pain, and for each patient, they are strictly personal reasons. The most important of these are spinal diseases and changes, which may have irreversible consequences.

Basic (most common)

The most common reasons are:

  1. Osteochondrosis. Clumsy exercise can create pressure on the roots of the spinal nerve trunk. You will not stop burning and complaining during the day. If you lift heavy objects, you will only have hellish pain in your lower back.
  2. Herniated disc. Usually, the hernia is located in the lower back, and any sudden movement of the trunk will compress the nerve roots.
  3. radiculitis. For lumbar ac radiculitis, shooting pain syndrome can occur. It can cause heavy moves or unsuccessful exercises. The severe pain severely restricted the patient's movement, making him unable to straighten and stay in place at the time of the attack.
  4. Vertebrae displacement. The problem is characterized by lower back pain and slightly lower exercise stiffness. This pathology is accompanied by disturbances in urination and bowel function.
  5. Aspect Syndrome. When the facet of the intervertebral disc expands above and below, the foramina decreases. In this case, unpleasant feelings suddenly appear and occur more than once a month. Leaning back, the patient will feel back discomfort.
  6. Epidural abscess. The accumulation of pus in the spinal cord is caused by a urinary tract infection. In addition to pain, fever, weakness and increased body temperature may also occur.

These are the causes-the consequences of spinal cord disease.

Due to the difference in leg length by 2-3 cm, the lower back may become ill, it is difficult for a person to move, and the back will be painful due to the continuous bending of the spine.

Overload and physical fatigue

In addition to serious diseases, severe lumbar pain is also attributed to overloaded work and sharp forward tilt of the trunk. Similarly, this problem also occurs when the temperature is violated on the human body. The source of these pains is:

The right lifting technique protects the musculoskeletal system
  1. Muscle stretching. Increased lumbar muscle strain is caused by body overload. Squeezing the muscles can cause pain and reduce mobility. This problem occurs in athletes and people engaged in high-intensity work.
  2. Neuralgia. Cold back can cause neuralgia-irritation or compression of nerves. Pathology manifests itself in different ways: sometimes in the form of seizures, accompanied by redness, tremor, tissue edema and profuse sweating.
  3. Myositis. After hypothermia and overwork, low back pain and discomfort started at night, suddenly increased, and weather conditions changed.

Frequent colds, decreased immunity, spinal cord injury after a blow or fall, both new and old can cause attacks.

Visceral diseases

Sometimes, due to damage to other organs (heart, liver, kidneys, lungs, gallbladder, etc. ), it is injured in the lumbar region. During inhalation, the pain syndrome from the lumbar region radiates along all nerve channels. Usually, the cause of this pathology is:

  1. Pyelonephritis. It is an infectious inflammation of the kidneys and urinary tract. Usually the pain is dull, but the attack is accompanied by chills, weakness, nausea and vomiting, and fever.
  2. Urolithiasis. The problem manifested as sudden severe pain, and long walking and hard work became unbearable. The attack is accompanied by nausea, vomiting and blood in the urine.
  3. Ectopic pregnancy. If the abortion causes the fallopian tube to rupture, the pain can spread to the groin and rectum. The rupture is accompanied by loss of consciousness, accompanied by a fallopian tube abortion, and hematomas in the peritoneal cavity.
  4. Periosteum peritonitis. This is a temporary inflammatory process of the uterine appendage. The woman has severe groin and back pain. In addition to the existing discomfort, chills, fever and heart are also increased.
  5. Tumors of different origin. When pressure is applied to the nerve endings, cancer with metastases can cause painful attacks. There are usually no first signs of this disease.

Visceral lesions with episodes of severe lower back pain are more difficult to diagnose. Therefore, you should contact an expert or call an ambulance immediately. In some cases, delays can cause serious health problems and even death.

Almost all pregnant women experience lower back pain. This is due to the reorganization of the body and the increase in body burden. Similarly, difficult or complicated labor may also be the cause.

Symptoms of underlying disease

Pain syndrome is most common in the background of nerve compression, osteochondrosis, intervertebral disc deformities and degenerative changes, and nerve root inflammation. Muscle cramps can also cause back discomfort in the waist area. Symptoms and characteristics of various diseases:

  1. For low back pain, the lumbar spine begins to change. First of all, acute pain can be controlled by medication. However, mobility is still limited.
  2. For sciatica, symptoms will decrease-reaching the upper surface of the legs and buttocks. Without timely treatment, the disease will become a long-term partner and may lead to other diseases.
  3. Osteochondrosis causes the development of other diseases of the spine. Therefore, the pain not only occurs in the lower back, but also spreads to the entire area.
  4. Scoliosis is characterized by the curvature of the bones and degenerative changes. The chronic form may be asymptomatic, in other cases the bones will be painful.
  5. Dull pain and traction pain are typical symptoms of internal organs (mainly genitourinary system and kidney), benign and malignant tumors.
  6. When suffering from spondylitis, the pain is dull, painful, and very weak at first. At the onset of the disease, it started to ache in the lower back and movement was restricted. Gradually, health conditions deteriorate, inflammation becomes more pronounced, it becomes difficult to move, or even to give a minimal load.
  7. In spine tuberculosis, in addition to pain, the body temperature will increase. A person feels tired, weak, weak, and appetite worsens. Sweat a lot and frequent urination at night.

View

Pain can only be localized in one place or "spread" in the abdomen, spine and upper back. The symptoms are acute and surround in the form of back pain, sluggishness and pain. It depends on the disease or pathological process.

The pain may be intermittent. This is usually related to physical activity, physical characteristics, and deterioration of chronic diseases. In the context of various internal organ diseases, continuous chronic pain occurs with vascular disease and deformation of the musculoskeletal system.

Sharp

Sharp, strong shooting pain causes inconvenience. In this type of attack, a person freezes in one position and cannot move. Even slight agitation can increase the already unbearable pain. This syndrome is called low back pain. Such symptoms may occur after vigorous massage or hypothermia.

complain

Chronic diseases are accompanied by pain, often accompanied by spondyloarthritis. Symptoms usually occur at night, after waking up or after sitting in a position for a long time.

Pull and dumb

These painful feelings can last for a long time and can be exhausting. In most cases, they are tolerable. For osteochondrosis, dull pain and pulling pain are not common, and it is more common for spinal diseases or damage to internal organs.Belt back painFor example, in pyelonephritis, the kidney tissue swells a lot and the capsule stretches, causing back pain.

Shingles

Symptoms may appear in one place, spread throughout the peritoneal area, and spread along the back. The waistband pain affects the entire lower back. If there are no other diagnostic methods, symptoms may be confused with spine and joint diseases. However, waistband pain usually causes internal organs to be affected.

Pain localization

In ankylosing spondyloarthritis, the symptoms mainly appear in the lower back. The pain basically occurs in the morning, and can even start in the middle of the night, and gradually increase, causing pain in the waist. Moreover, the discomfort of the lower back is accompanied by pelvic organ diseases, coccyx trauma, urological and gynecological pathology, and the threat of miscarriage after childbirth.

In the upper part, symptoms occur in kyphosis, trauma, muscle myositis, osteochondrosis, infection process or tumor. Similarly, the cause may be gastrointestinal pathology, gynecology, kidney and heart disease, pneumonia, pleurisy, influenza, ARVI.

Pain on the left or right side of the lower back is caused by diseases of the central nervous system, spine and internal organs. Symptoms will appear from the side of the affected area. Negative feelings immediately appeared on the left and right sides, accompanied by pleurisy, hepatitis, pneumonia, cholecystitis, prostatitis, and feminine appendages.

Male and female functions

Certain types of pain may only occur in women. For example, gynecological diseases. Nephritis is characterized by discomfort in the lower abdomen. In this case, the pain sometimes spreads to the lower back. During pregnancy, the main symptoms occur in the groin area and radiate to the lower back due to increased spinal load. Woman has pain due to stressIn the latter part of pregnancy, low back pain may occur during childbirth and there is a risk of miscarriage.

When menstruation stops, menopause may be the cause of back pain in the lumbar region. The appearance of symptoms in the lumbar region is affected by jumps in estrogen levels, circulatory diseases, early stages of osteochondrosis, hernias and other spinal diseases. Pain is also caused by stress, and women are more susceptible to stress than men. In this case, the symptoms are periodic.

In men, back pain is usually related to professional activities, risks-physical exertion, hypothermia, draught work. There are many diseases that can cause adverse symptoms in the lower back. With prostatitis, the pain first appears in the anal area, but it spreads to the back. Epididymitis is characterized by an inflammatory process. Initially, the pain appears in the groin area and then radiates to the lower back. At the same time, this is accompanied by an increase in temperature and swelling of the scrotum.

First Aid

What if you experience terrible lower back pain spontaneously? The following steps should be taken immediately:

  1. Give you absolute rest.
  2. Maintain a comfortable posture, preferably lying on a hard surface.
  3. You can put ice on your lower back, but before that, put it on cheesecloth folded into 3-4 layers. This can only be done if the cause of the pain is not an organ infection.
  4. Apply loose painkillers to the affected area.
  5. Take painkillers.

All these activities will help quickly get rid of severe lower back pain. However, it is necessary to conduct expert consultation and inspections to find out the real cause of such attacks and to prescribe appropriate treatment methods.

What can't be done

If there is a sudden back pain, the doctor recommends not to use warm ointment and gel immediately. They stimulate blood flow to the sore, which leads to increased swelling and then increased pain. Before going to the doctor or arriving in the ambulance, please completely and absolutely exclude the following:

  1. Perform exercises of your choice.
  2. When washing in a sauna or steam bath, do not use a contrast agent rinser.
  3. Drink alcohol to relieve pain.

Only doctors who have been checked and diagnosed have the right to prescribe for waist pain.

What should I do next, which doctor should I see?

First, you need to see a therapist. He performed a preliminary examination, prescribed the necessary tests, and based on the results obtained, sent him to a stenosis specialist-surgeon, surgeon, neurologist. If the pain is related to the formation of malignant tumors, consultation from an oncologist is required. When gastrointestinal disease is the cause-a gastroenterologist, a female disease-a gynecologist, a male-a urologist or a rectal doctor.

Check and check

Spine MRI to determine the cause of low back pain

In order to find out the cause of lower back pain, a preliminary visual inspection was first performed, and then palpation was performed. With its help, you can determine the location of symptoms. The patient described the nature of the pain, the duration of the onset, after which the pain may appear (falls, physical activity). In addition, many studies have been conducted:

  1. blood test. It can show the presence of inflammation, infection, tumors.
  2. Urinalysis. Allows you to rule out kidney pathology. If the analysis is not good, you need to prescribe an ultrasound examination.
  3. X-ray. Enables you to determine inflammatory processes, spinal diseases, injuries, cracks, fractures, nerve compression. Ideally, X-ray examination of the spine and pelvic bones.
  4. CT. Tomography can provide more information than X-rays. It can show small defects and generate 3D images. At the same time, all bone structures are clearly visible.
  5. MRI. Provides an opportunity to explore the soft tissues in or near the spine. At the same time, check the condition of the spinal cord, nerve roots, ligaments, and muscles. Changes in hernias and blood vessels are clearly visible.

However, CT and MRI are only suitable for severe symptoms. Usually, X-ray or ultrasound scans, blood and urine laboratory tests are sufficient.

Basic therapy

If lower back pain is caused by spinal problems, pathological comprehensive treatment should be used. It includes the following activities:

  • is ​​the smooth tissue of the spine;
  • Manual treatment;
  • Application of therapeutic massage;
  • Physiotherapy and reflexology courses: acupuncture, UHF, etc. ;
  • Medication: medicine, ointment, blockade;
  • If necessary, wear a special corset;
  • Perform remedial gymnastics.

The main focus is on drug therapy, the main purpose of which is to eliminate adverse symptoms and relieve inflammation. As additional funds, physiotherapy, massage, and exercise therapy are prescribed. In difficult situations, surgery may be required.

Medications

Anti-inflammatory drugs are the first choice for back pain. They also relieve pain. Analgesics can be prescribed at the same time. In addition, muscle relaxants are also prescribed. In order to reduce the degeneration of cartilage, it is recommended to use chondroprotective agents. In order to relieve pain, sometimes medication is blocked based on analgesics.

There are several types of topical ointments and gels:

  1. Means based on non-steroidal anti-inflammatory ingredients.
  2. A combined preparation with anti-inflammatory effect and tissue cell regeneration.
  3. Anesthetics and irritants.
  4. Homeopathy.
  5. Cartilage protective agent, can promote the recovery of cartilage tissue.
  6. Massage products (cosmetics).

It is important to know that these methods can relieve pain, but they cannot cure the underlying cause. For example, if lower back pain occurs for this reason, internal organs will be damaged. In this case, you should have an examination, and then the expert will prescribe an effective treatment for this special pathological condition.

Exercise to strengthen the back muscles

Exercise and massage

Exercise therapy (therapeutic gymnastics) and massage are recommended to strengthen the muscular framework of the back, normalize blood circulation and increase tone. Exercise can prevent back and lower back pain. The exercise therapy complex is individually selected. Massage can enhance the effectiveness of exercise and restore the elasticity and flexibility of ligaments. It can only be used in combination with a bathtub or sauna according to medical advice.

Physical Therapy

Physical therapy should only be used after the acute episode of lower back pain has been relieved. Then, these procedures can help reduce or prevent the disease from getting worse. The following is used as physical therapy:

  • Mud therapy;
  • Electrophoresis;
  • balneotherapy;
  • Muscle electrical stimulation;
  • Voice input method (ultrasonic);
  • Paraffin treatment;
  • Reflexology;
  • Pulse therapy.

This procedure helps reduce edema, has analgesic effect, improves blood circulation, relaxes muscles, and normalizes metabolic processes and lymphatic flow.

Surgery

The absolute indication for surgery is cauda equina syndrome, when urinary incontinence and fecal incontinence occur, and there is numbness in the perineum. In addition, if the medical treatment is ineffective, the lower back pain persists for more than six months and starts to radiate to the legs, intervention must be carried out. Hernias can also be surgically operated.

Chopped ingredients, used to treat compresses

Folk remedies

In addition, folk remedies-infusion, herbal soup can be used. Compression (for example, from chopped onions, fresh beef leaves, boiled potatoes and horseradish, mustard sauce). Rub with eucalyptus and beef d tin, you can use a mixture of warm honey, cologne, red pepper, iodine and valerian. For internal use, it is recommended to use sa wine with sabre wine or wheat soup with coriander and milk.

Expert advice

If you feel sore for at least 3 months, it is considered acute pain. The following tips will help you speed up the recovery of acute low back pain and reduce its intensity:

  1. It is important to provide patients with an absolute rest period of 2-3 days. You need to go to bed and maintain a comfortable posture: lying on your side with a pillow between your knees, or lying on your back with a pillow under your knees. You cannot stand still all day-it is recommended to get up and out of bed every 2-3 hours and warm up for 10-15 minutes.
  2. If you cannot tolerate the pain, you should take painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs regularly. You may not achieve the desired results by taking them only when the pain is getting worse.
  3. Wash in hot water every 3 hours or heat it with a heating pad for 10-15 minutes, or even cold compresses-improve blood circulation, reduce pain and inflammation.

When you feel better, you should gradually return to your usual lifestyle. Lying in bed for a long time can cause muscle atrophy, thereby exacerbating the disease. You can train your body by walking or walking on the simulator-this is the easiest way to exercise for waist pain.

If lower back pain is not an independent disease, then it is the result of a serious disease in the body. Therefore, you should contact the medical institution immediately to confirm the pathology and effective treatment.