Nowadays, there are always many patients who come to the clinic because of low back pain, which may be acute or slow in onset, long or short in duration. Can it be cured? How to relieve the pain now? How can I prevent or take care of it? Let’s talk about back pain in general today! Hopefully, we can remove the anxiety from many people’s minds and give you some advice. Our lumbar spine supports our body and also serves the function of movement. The lumbar spine is made up of the spinal bones, intervertebral discs, synovial joints and the surrounding muscles and ligaments. A problem with any of these structures can lead to lumbar pain. The incidence of low back pain is very high, with some statistics showing that about 84% of people will experience low back pain at least once in their lifetime. It has also been estimated that about 20% of adults suffer from low back pain during the same time period (within 1 year). This shows how common low back pain is. Most of us may not have seriously thought about the fact that our lumbar spine, like all objects, is material. That is to say, there is a process from new to old, from young to old. And this process comes faster and earlier than most people think. Under normal circumstances, our lumbar spine starts to go downhill from our 20s. Most people are very surprised and find it unbelievable when they first hear about this. But think about the other organs in our body, like our skin, our teeth. Are they not always undergoing changes that everyone can notice? I don’t want to go into depth here about how our lumbar spine starts or how it degenerates and ages, that’s too specialized and boring, all you need to know is that our spine, like all material things, ages. There are so many patients with back pain, what is the problem? Most patients are suffering from some strain disorder caused by their usual bad habits of living and studying and working. For example, people who sit and work for a long time, people who often bend over and work, people who often carry weight. People generally do not feel that sitting is not good for the lumbar spine, in fact, when sitting the force on the lumbar spine is 1.5 times that of standing, bending is even greater, if coupled with lifting heavy objects, the burden on the lumbar spine will increase exponentially. Thus, obese people are undoubtedly carrying weight all the time, so people with large weight are prone to lumbago. Strain injury causes lumbar pain, so what structure occurs strain injury? As mentioned earlier, our lumbar spine is made up of bones, intervertebral discs, synovial joints and muscle ligaments, all of which are subject to strain. Each of them has its own characteristics in terms of the pain they cause. The most common may be muscle fatigue, manifested as a relatively superficial soreness of the lower back, the scope is relatively large, feel uncomfortable throughout the spine, but if someone helps massage will feel very comfortable. Pain caused by arthritic joints is often located on both sides of the midline of the lumbar spine, sometimes radiating to the outer hip or outer thigh, always painful in the morning when you get up or sit for a long time and just stand up, but will feel better with a little activity, and worsen after exertion. There is a common type of acute low back pain, often when you just get up, a slight movement, such as laying the quilt or sneezing, suddenly occurs severe low back pain, as a result of which the lumbar spine can not straighten or bend at once. This pain is also caused by the synovial joints, and we call this problem lumbar small joint disorder or lumbar small joint synovial impingement. In lumbar discogenic low back pain, the pain is a deeper dull pain, the positioning is not particularly accurate, often feel that the lower back can not support the body, especially can not sit for a long time, when lying in bed can feel better. It can be said that the vast majority of our daily back pain is caused by several of these problems, especially strain on the muscles and synovial joints. So how do we treat it? Most patients turn to their doctors, hoping that they will suggest some kind of treatment, most hopefully massage, or traction, and then medication (after all, medication has side effects, and it would be nice to be able to get better with tenderness). In short, the patient wants a method that does not take much effort on his part and works wonders. In a general sense, is there such a thing as a good thing in the world? I tend to tell patients that treatment needs to be on their own. The first thing to recognize is that these problems are caused by the aging of the organism’s physiology, or by incorrect habits in general, and thirdly by lack of exercise. Recognizing the aging problem helps you to eliminate anxiety; after all, most people don’t panic about having more wrinkled skin. Recognizing that most back pain is caused by bad habits in daily life helps to eliminate the root cause of back pain. For example, if you lose weight, you will lose 20 pounds of flesh on your body, which will reduce the burden on your lumbar spine. Some people will say that they have back pain, do not dare to exercise, how to lose weight ah? Swimming is the best way, because there is buoyancy in the water, the burden on the lumbar spine is significantly reduced. What if you don’t know how to swim? Younger, I encourage them to learn; older, I encourage them to walk in the pool. People who need to sit and work for a long time, I recommend that they first maintain the correct sitting posture, sitting straight or lightly lean back on the back of the chair to minimize the force on the lumbar spine; work for an hour to get up and move around. Usually to move heavy things from the ground must not bend down to move, but first squat down, hold the things after standing up, so as to avoid the force and sprain of the waist. Third, to adhere to the waist exercise. For example, stretching exercises help to stretch and stretch the muscles around the spine, helping to relieve muscle fatigue. The discs and synovial joints of our lumbar spine age with age, and there is really nothing we can do about it, but we can compensate for their support by strengthening the muscles. Muscle exercises, such as small swallow fly (prone on the bed, lower back muscles force the upper body and thighs together upward, in the upward position to hold for 5 seconds and then relax, so repeatedly do 20 times, 20 times as a group, 3-5 groups per day), five-point support, supine on the bed, with elbows and heels to support the bed, the hips up, also adhere to 5 seconds, 3-5 groups per day, 20 times per group. The same goes for sit-ups. Swimming and yoga are also good ways to increase the muscles in the lower back. Here I especially need to draw the patient’s attention to the fact that low back pain is often a chronic process and recovery takes time, with acute low back pain relief taking more than 2-3 weeks, with long periods taking 2-3 months. Many patients feel that the sky is falling after 3-5 days of pain, which is totally unnecessary. In addition, the cure or relief of low back pain requires the patient’s own efforts, and it is true that in acute or severe cases, we can use drugs or physical therapy or massage. But the long-term maintenance is needed for ourselves. For example, if a child is in poor health and prone to illness, do parents continue to wrap them in thick clothes and give them ginseng chicken soup every day? Or should they keep running and swimming every day to improve their health? This is also the case for our patients with low back pain. In cases where lumbar discogenic low back pain is a little more serious than muscle and synovial strain, confirming the diagnosis requires going to an experienced hospital for some special tests. In addition, a few easily confused concepts need to be reminded. 1, low back pain is not a hint of a lumbar disc herniation. The typical manifestation of lumbar disc herniation is sciatica, that is, pain radiating from the hip along the outer thigh all the way to the calf or foot, such symptoms can only suggest lumbar disc herniation. 2. Bone spurs are not the cause of pain. Many patients are very nervous when they see their X-rays with bone spurs, or osteophytes, saying that I have grown bone spurs. What medicine can I take to eliminate the bone spur? I’ll tell you, bone spurs, like the wrinkles on our faces, are a sign of aging of our bones and joints. Their actual role is to compensate for the instability of our spine, they are not the source of pain, and therefore do not need to be treated for them. 3, lumbar intervertebral bulge and lumbar disc herniation and lumbar disc herniation are not the same. The first two terms are an imaging description, which describes a state of the intervertebral disc, which may be present in normal people who go for an MRI. As long as these herniated or bulging discs do not compress the nerves and do not cause sciatica as described above, they are not a disease and do not require treatment. I say that most of our back pain is caused by strain. But don’t ignore the potential for some serious problems. We call them red flags. 1. There is no trauma. Serious trauma is certainly not ignored. However, in people with osteoporosis, some minor trauma can also cause fractures of the vertebrae. For example, older women are prone to osteoporosis, and sometimes fractures can occur simply because they carry a jug of water, or the sofa is shorter, and they sit heavily when they do go down. 2. There are no signs of nerve damage. If the back pain radiates to the lower extremities, especially the calves and feet, it suggests nerve compression. If there is pain around the perineum and anus, you need to go to the hospital immediately for examination and treatment. 3. There is no manifestation of tumor or infectious disease. In elderly or particularly young patients, the occurrence of tumors should be excluded. Be especially alert if there is progressive aggravation of low back pain, especially if there is night pain and pain that cannot be relieved by lying in bed. Patients who have had tumors before should be alert to the occurrence of metastatic cancer of the spine. If accompanied by systemic symptoms such as fever, chills and weight loss, be alert to the presence of tumors or infectious diseases. If any of these danger signs appear, I hope you will go to the nearest spine specialist for treatment in time, and I will be happy to help you if you are close to our hospital.