What the X-Rays Show

Usually, if the doctor decides he or she needs to actually look at the bones of the spine, an X-ray is ordered.  But even if you get an x-ray that doesn’t mean you’ll suddenly have all the answers.  The x-ray can only show bones and not muscles, tendons or ligaments.  So if your back pain is not due to broken bones, slipped vertebrae  or other bone problems the x-ray is pretty much useless.  Some doctors just skip right to the MRI or CAT scan instead.

Taking x-rays has been such a routine practice for so long now it’s probably ordered sometimes more out of habit.  As the new procedures become more widely used I would expect the x-ray to be used less and less for back pain diagnosis purposes.    Of course, x-rays are good from the viewpoint they are often done right in the doctors’ offices now, are painless and give speedy results.  Just don’t be too disappointed when you don’t find out the first trip what’s causing your pain.

Go Ahead and Shock Me

When I think of electrical stimulation I can’t help but think of the old Frankenstein movies.  Yet electrical stimulation is used as one of the treatments for back therapy.  Of course, it’s been given a long medical name which is Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation or TENS.  It makes me want to ask which came first – the acronym or the name.

This is how TENS works.  A physical therapist uses special medical equipment that can dish up low level electricity directed to the muscle through electrodes on the skin.  The whole point of the treatment is to make your brain forget about pain for a while and think about the electrical stimulation.  This can be a great temporary solution, but it won’t last.  It’s good for those people who really need a break from the pain, but don’t consider it an answer to your back pain problems.

An MRI Anyone?

It seems like every time I watch the news concerning healthy living updates I hear the acronym MRI.   It’s treated in people’s mind like it’s an X-ray, but it really is something completely different.  People with back pain often get an MRI when the doctor is trying to figure out what’s causing the problem.  An MRI shows a lot more than an X-ray.

MRI actually stands for Magnetic Resonance Imaging.  It uses radio waves and a magnetic field to create a clear picture of your spine.  Some people don’t like to get an MRI, because you have to lie still in a long tube that’s open at both ends.  It can be hard to handle if you have any claustrophobia.  The newer machines are now made with some added features such as music intended to be distracting.  The MRI can be a real important test when trying to diagnose the source of back pain.  If the doctor wants you to have one, you should agree because it gives a lot more information about soft tissue which doesn’t show up on X-rays.

More Pain in the You-Know-What

There’s a diagnosis called Lumbar Spinal Stenosis.  It’s a fancy name for a spine that has a narrowing channel which squeezes the nerves.  These nerves lead to your butt and your legs, so there can be considerable pain.  There’s lot of reasons why the spinal canal can be too narrow.  For one thing, you can be born that way.  Or it can simply be due to wear and tear over the years. Disc bulges are another culprit.  When a disc bulges and the vertebrae shift, the shape of the spinal canal can change.

This diagnosis isn’t life threatening, but it means you probably have pain in your rear which makes it hard to walk for any distance.  Leaning at the waist usually relieves the pain, but it’s an uncomfortable position.  The normal treatment suggestions for this diagnosis include exercise, steroid injections or even surgery.  Surgery is always an absolute last choice though.

All Dried Up

Getting a diagnosis of degenerative disc disease can be scary.  It sounds so awful in several ways.  Degenerative means a steady decline and disc disease indicates something abnormal is happening to your back.   In essence, degenerative disc disease is when the disc between vertebrae starts drying out.  If it gets dry enough the disc can eventually collapses and can cause other back problems.

The good news is that it’s really not a disease.  Degenerative disc disease is  a normal step in the aging process.  Actually, a lot of things get drier in the body as it ages if you think about it including skin and hair.  There’s really not a lot that can be done about degenerative disc disease itself.  If the drying up of the disc causes other problems like vertebrae collapsing then there are several treatments that can be applied.  For the most part, the best thing you can do is regular back exercises to keep the muscle support system strong.

I’m In So Much Pain!

The doctor labels pain according to how long it lasts and how often it occurs.  They do this so they can determine which is the best diagnostic tool and the best treatment to use.  The categories can get a little blurry at times though.  For example, acute pain can be recurrent pain.

The first kind of pain is acute pain. Acute pain is pain that usually lasts less than one month.  The level of pain depends upon what caused the pain. The worse the injury, the more it hurts.  Chronic pain is pain that lasts longer than 3 to 6 months.  You don’t even have to have an injury still healing for the pain to continue.  Intermittent or recurrent pain is acute pain that happens over and over again.

There are lots of pain therapies used for the different levels of pain.  You can do some at home while others require a doctor.  When you go to the doctor, he or she is going to classify your pain after getting a history or your pain episodes.

Knowing Your Spine

The spine is made up of 3 sections and each section has so many vertebrae.  If you’re going to talk about back pain then you should know which vertebrae numbers belong to which spine segment.  Otherwise, it won’t mean a thing when the doctor tells you that vertebrae T6 is injured.  By the way, vertebrae is plural for vertebra.

The top section of the spine is called the cervical curve, and it’s composed of vertebrae identified as C1 to C7.  The middle of the spine is called the thoracic curve and it’s made of vertebrae identified as T1 to T12.  The third section is the lower back, and it’s called the lumbosacral curve.  The lumbosacral curve is composed of vertebrae L1 to L5.  Below the lower spine is the coccyx or tailbone.  The spine is meant to be in balance in order to do its job properly.    The spine should be lined up so that the ear, shoulder and hip are in a line.  The spine curves, but the body is straight.

Snaking Bones

We all know we have a spine, and we know it has a long snakelike design.  But not everyone knows what keeps it supple and able to survive all the tension and motion we expect it to handle.  The spine itself is made of vertebrae which are bones.  But in between the bones is a disc.  It’s the disc that provides a cushion for your back bones.  The  disc is made up of mostly water.

Something holds all of this together and that something is ligaments and tendons.  Inside the spine is the spinal cord.  The spinal cord runs from the brain to the end of the spine.  A lot of nerves run out from the spine discs.  Now it’s easy to see how you can have so much back pain, isn’t it?  There are bones, ligaments, tendons, discs and nerves in your back.  Don’t forget the back muscles too.  Any of these back components can be broken, sprained, injured, pulled, torn or bruised.  It makes it really hard to find the source of back pain in many cases.  In other words, be patient with your doctor when he or she has to run a lot of tests looking for answers to your back pain.