It is common to experience pain in your lower back, primarily due to ligament sprain and muscle strains. This pain is mainly not severe and lasts only for a short period or goes away quickly with conservative measures. However, when your low back pain persists for several weeks or months, it becomes a significant concern and is considered chronic. Medical experts like Jeff Pan, MD, with extensive experience handling low back conditions, agree that you need an accurate diagnosis for chronic pain as you could be enduring other health issues. Here is a glimpse of what could cause chronic low back pain.
Osteoarthritis
Your disc and facet joints wear off naturally with aging or due to other factors. The wear and tear cause instability, inflammation, and significant pain in your back. The pain can occur in a single level or several levels in your lower back. Since the condition is mainly associated with aging, it progresses slowly, and the symptoms will worsen over time depending on the severity of the wear and tear. The state is also referred to as degenerative joint disease or spondylosis.
Spondylolisthesis
When one of your vertebrae slips over the adjacent one, it results in pain and other issues in your back. Although there are five different types of this condition, the most common ones include facet joints, mechanical instability, fracture between the facet joints, or secondary to a defect. You will experience pain in your lower back due to nerve compression or instability in your spine.
Spinal Stenosis
Your nerve roots are located in the spinal canal, narrowing down due to several factors. The narrowing of the spinal canal may be formal, central, or both. It can also occur at a single level or several levels in your lower back, causing severe pain.
Sacroiliac Joint Dysfunction
It is the sacroiliac joint that connects your sacrum at the base of your spine to every side of the pelvis. This joint is designed strong, and low-motion to primarily absorb tension and shock between your upper and lower body. The joint can become inflamed or experience too little or too much motion causing significant pain in your lower back.
Facet Joint Dysfunction
Two facet joints lie between every disc in your lumbar spine at each motion segment. The joints contain cartilage in the bones and are encircled by a capsular ligament with multiple nerves. Specific issues can result in the joints painting by themselves, or they can be affected by disc pain.
Degenerative Disc Disease
Your intervertebral discs were filled with water at your birth. However, several factors aging the main causes the discs to lose hydration and wear out. This will cause the disc to malfunction and not resist force well, causing tear development and pain. Over time, the condition can also lead to herniation or cause the disc to collapse, leading to stenosis and further contributing to lower back pain.
Lumbar Herniated Disc
Your lumbar discs have a jelly-like center that can break out irritating nearby nerve roots. The herniated part of the disc has a high protein concentration which causes inflammation when it gets to the nerve roots. It can also cause nerve compression resulting in nerve root pain. Also, your disc walls are richly supplied with nerve fibers, and since a tear may occur, you can experience severe pain that translates to chronic low back pain.
Chronic lower back pain is not something you wait to go on its own; you ought to get an accurate diagnosis to understand the underlying cause and seek suitable treatment. Wait no more and reach out to your back conditions specialist for help.
