4 Common causes for low back pain, sciatica
Are you searching for relief from low back pain? Well, we may have the solution. Brian Horner, owner/director of fast track physical therapy joined us today to talk four of the main causes of lower-back pain. Here’s more from him:
These four common causes could also be the same for someone’s neck pain or symptoms going down the arm.
Often patients believe they must have imaging, like X-ray or MRI, before they can begin physical therapy, but for the past few years I have seen that most insurances are requiring PT first before authorizing doctors to order MRI. MRI can help to narrow down the diagnosis, but they are expensive and do not fix the problem.
Patients can come to see us directly to begin treatment without being referred by their Dr. Almost all insurances do not require a doctor’s referral.
If a person’s perception of physical therapy is 30-40 minutes of treatment that consisted mainly of a bunch of exercises that didn’t seem to help, that isn’t our clinics. Exercise is important component, but rarely see that it is the answer to resolving the problem. Our therapist will utilize various manual / hands-on techniques, at times traction to unload the spine and other modalities when needed.
Four causes for low back pain:
1: Herniated Disc: Other names…bulging, extruded, slipped. This person is often under the age of 55 and normally sitting, bending, and flexion of the low back will make symptoms worse. Standing and walking often will feel better but symptoms still do not go away.
2. Stenosis, DDD (degenerative disc disease), Arthritis, spondylosis: All basically mean the same thing. This person often is over the age of 55 and normally will have reduction of symptoms with sitting or bending over and often symptoms increase with standing / walking. This might be the person you see leaning over the grocery cart.
3: SI joint or pelvic pain: Pain around the sacrum or areas of the pelvis. This could be a person of any age. Sometimes a little more common with females.
4: Muscular / myofascial pain: We all have had strained muscles, muscles in spasm or trigger points. Those knots in our muscle that we keep asking our spouse or massage therapist to rub out. Muscular pain can be in the area of the muscle that is in spasm or even cause a referred pain to another area.
Treatment: Our PT’s utilize many manual techniques to address muscular issues. We have found that muscular and even tendon issues in most cases respond the best and quickest to Dry Needling. All of our therapists are very experienced in dry needling, and we utilize this technique frequently. We also use cupping, instrument assisted soft tissue tech., kinesio taping, trigger point release, myofascial stretching, and percussion tools. Modalities like ultrasound, cortisone patches and laser therapy are often used to speed up the healing process.
THIS SEGMENT IS SPONSORED BY FAST TRACK PHYSICAL THERAPY.