Lower Right Back Pain

Lower Right Back Pain: Possible Causes
One of the most common complaints medical doctors hear from patients is back pain. This can be due to a number of reasons including strained muscles, bad posture or even arthritis. Suffering from back pain is not really unusual as the back is quite susceptible to injury primarily because it bears the upper body’s weight and is actually responsible for more movements. Because of the constant movement, the parts are more susceptible to wear and tear.

On the other hand, if the back pain is localized at the lower right area, it could be a sign of a much more serious health condition. Among them are:

Lumbar Strain

It is very likely the cause of the lower right back pain is tearing or pulling or any of the ligaments, muscles or tendons located at the said area. You will be surprised to know that even a microscopic tear can cause muscle spasm and trigger inflammation, which could worsen the pain. Lumbar strain can be due to lifting objects incorrectly or hurting your back from athletic activity.

Usually, the pain can go away after strengthening exercises but a trip to a doctor or chiropractor might be needed. In any case, you should limit activity involving your lower right back. Alternate cold and hot compress is also advisable to relieve swelling and stimulate blood flow.

Sciatica

Lower right back pain can be caused by a problem with your sciatic nerve, the longest nerve in the human body running from the spinal cord to the back of the legs. You need to understand sciatica is actually a symptom of a much more serious nerve-related problem like herniated disk.

Symptoms of sciatica include muscle weakness, numbness and pain from lower back to the buttocks to the back of the calf. Treatment usually involves physical therapy, prescription drugs (anti-inflammatory medications), steroid injections and even surgery for severe cases.

Herniated Disc

Also referred to as ruptured disc or slipped disc, herniated disc involves the soft tissues between the spine’s vertebrae which work to provide cushions and offer flexibility. When the soft jelly inside these discs is pushed out, it can irritate nearby nerves and cause pain. Aside from lower right back pain, a person can also experience weakness or numbness. Treatment usually involves narcotics, pain medications, muscle relaxers and cortisone injections. Physical therapists can also teach positions which will minimize lower right back pain caused by the herniated disc. For severe pain, surgery is an option.

Kidney Stones

Another possible reason for your lower right back pain is the presence of kidney stones. Made with acid salts and minerals which crystallized together, kidney stones can be quite painful if they are passing through the bladder.

Small kidney stones do not usually require invasive treatment. In many cases, drinking water can easily flush out these crystals. If the pain becomes too much to bear, you can always take pain medication until such time the stones have passed. Your doctor can also prescribe certain medications to relax the ureter muscles.

On the other hand, large kidney stones can cause much pain, bleeding and even kidney damage especially if they are too large to pass. More invasive medical treatment might be required including Extracorporeal Shock Wave Lithotripsy and surgery (nephrolithotomy).

Kidney Infection

Lower right back pain can also be brought about by kidney infection, a type of urinary type infection involving the area from the urethra to the kidneys. It is important to treat this particular infection as it can lead to more permanent kidney damage.

Infection of the kidney can be due to bacteria entering the urinary tract via urine. First line of treatment is usually with antibiotics but severe cases might require hospitalization. Some individuals suffer from recurrent kidney infection and should consult a kidney specialist to determine the cause of the recurrence.

Other possible causes:

• Osteoarthritis
• Spinal stenosis
• Spinal deformities
• Fractures
• Spondylolisthesis
• Ankylosing spondylitis
• Spinal tumors
• Bacterial infection

Prevention

For lower right back pain caused by muscle strain, it is important that you keep the muscles in the area strong. You can accomplish this by engaging in back-strengthening exercises. Of course, a good posture helps as well. It would be better to avoid heavy lifting too as this is seen as one of the common reasons for having back pain. Keeping a healthy diet that is rich in protein, wearing flat, well-cushioned shoes and losing weight should also be considered to avoid unnecessary toll on the lower back

Medical conditions which list lower right back pain as a symptom should be identified as early as possible. Most of the time, the pain is indicative of something more serious and getting it checked will not only stop the pain but treat it as well.

About Back Pain due to Osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis is the degeneration of the cartilage. The common locations for osteoarthritis are the spine, the hips, knees, hands etc. In the spinal osteoarthritis, the smooth articular cartilage coating the facet joints of the spine get deteriorated gradually. The bones of the joint can't move smoothly over the roughened cartilage. This cause irritation and damage to the bone and may cause you severe back pain.

Why Back Pain?

Spine is one of the most common places for osteoarthritis. The spinal osteoarthritis can sometimes be very painful. You would have to face the back pain that sometimes could be severe. But, usually, there isn't any inflammation in the early stages of osteoarthritis of the spine. In the advanced cases of osteoarthritis of the spine, the bits of cartilage may break off and float around inside the joints. This would cause irritation to the soft tissues and inflammation may result and also you would experience the back pain. Physicians would advice you to go for an x-ray that would help to determine if there are bone spurs or damage to the bones. The damage in the spinal osteoarthritis could be of varying degrees. The mild damages sometimes do not have any symptoms or often come with mild back pain. The advanced degrees of damage may include rubbing of the bones in the joint. But it should be remembered that the amount of back pain would not tell you the exact picture of your damage. Therefore, the proper investigation is very much necessary to determine the amount of damage in the spine.

The most common location for the back pain due to spinal osteoarthritis is the lower back. The lower back carries most of the weight of the body. It is also the area of the body that gets the most of the mechanical stress. Due to the excess stress on the lower back, the back muscle gets strained and it can irritate spinal joints that have already been damaged by osteoarthritis. In case of osteoarthritis in the upper back, the back pain may flare up from slouching.

Symptoms

The symptom of the back pain may come out gradually. It may start with the pain in the morning for the first half hour. The back pain may typically improve during the day and then worsen in the later half of the day or at evening. During this time, many people reduce their daily activities because of this back pain. They think that the daily activities may worsen the back pain. But reducing the daily work, in fact weakens the muscles that support the back and as a result, more stress is placed on the spinal joints.

Treatments

Exercise is the best treatment to cope with the back pain. There are several strengthening exercises that you can do regularly to strengthen your back and abs. Strong muscles absorb shock before it reaches the joints of the spine and hence help to support the spine. Stretching exercises decrease the stiffness and help to ease the back pain. Low-impact aerobics such as walking, swimming, or using an exercise bike could help you to increase the blood circulation in your body and it would also decrease the stiffness.

How to Relieve Back Pain

Back pain is responsible for most of the disabilities worldwide. Moreover, a large number of absentees from workplaces are also due to this incapacitating disorder. ‘How to relive back pain?’ has become the most common concern of most of the societies across the world.

‘Prevention is better than cure’, this should be the slogan for relieving back pain. Back pain can be prevented by taking proper care of the back from the very outset. Most of the back pains are postural, occurring due to the use of poorly designed and, unsupportive chairs. So, use of such chairs must be avoided. Moreover, unusual push or pull on the back should be avoided during physical activities.

There are certain stretching exercises of the back which strengthen the back muscles and relieve back pain. Swimming has proved to be the best exercise for the prevention of back pain.

A healthy and balanced diet is very important for a healthy back. Necessary components of the diet like water, proteins, fats, carbohydrates, fiber, vitamins and minerals should be in adequate amount in the diet, as they will make the back strong and healthy. If enough amounts of these dietary components cannot be taken in daily diet, then supplements must be used. A multiple of dietary supplements containing Vitamin B complex, Vitamin C, Vitamin D and calcium are available in the market. Glucosamine and chondroitin are two important components to be supplemented as they help in the formation of the cartilage.

If all these measures fail and you manage to have a back pain, you should consult a doctor. Most of the back pains are of mechanical nature and are well addressed by oral or topical analgesics, and muscle relaxants. Physiotherapy is another very promising treatment modality to relieve back pain.

Lower Back Pain

Lower back pain is a common phenomenon. It is so common to the extent that up to 80% of the world population is affected by it. It had also been found to have very negative effects on our lives as individuals. Several individuals in the United States keep off from work because of back pain. It is even the most common cause for such work related absence. It had also been discovered that lower back pain is usually gotten in working places; especially when the individual affected has to lift one form of heavy load or the other. It had also been discovered that it mostly affects those in the working class. It can also advance into old age if it is not treated on time.

Different types

Lower back pain has different types. They can be classified into acute lower back pain, sub-acute lower back pain and chronic lower back pain. The basis for the classification is the duration of the back pain. In the case of acute lower back pain, it does not last more than a matter of weeks. It may also occur for a couple of days. Sub acute lasts between the periods of one to three months. In the case of chronic lower back pain, the pain can be felt for a very long period of time. At times the individual suffering from it can feel the pain for more than three months. One thing about acute lower back pain is that it disappears after it had been treated. But in the case of chronic lower back pain, it trends top remain even after the cause had been removed.

Possible Causes

If you suffer strain or sprain to your lower back, you are sure to end up with lower back pain. It occurs at the lumber region of the back and any strain to that area will lead to lower back pain. When you lift excessive load, you stand a good chance of experiencing the pain. When you perform excessive exercises, you may also suffer from it. Strain can be treated easily. But sprain on the other hand may not be easily treated. Strain usually leads to acute lower back pain while sprain is the cause of chronic lower back pain.

Aging is another cause of this kind of pain on the lower back region. When someone grows old, the intervertebral disc that lies between the vertebrae tends to shrink in size. This will ultimately lead to pain.

Methods of treatment

Before treatment of the pain is carried out, imaging should be done on the affected part. The imaging helps in revealing the part that is affected by the pain. It also helps to determine the possible cause. The pain may not be easily treated if the cause is not known.

Conclusion

I am sure that the information above had gotten you well informed about lower back pain, its causes and its treatment. In order to prevent it, you should take some time to perform physical exercise. You should also avoid overdoing the exercise so that it will not lead to further complications.

Best Treatment for Lower Back Pain

There is no single regimen that can be considered as the best treatment for lower back pain. The wide array of back pain causes and the varying severity of each cause require that treatment methods are specifically tailored to each individual condition. Thus, it is hard to say only rest, medication or surgery can be considered as the best options for treating lower back pain for every single case that is diagnosed.

Of course, from the perspective of preference and convenience, doctors hope that rest, therapy and other non-invasive treatments will be sufficient for treating most lower back problems. This is because prescribing rest, therapy and pain medication implies that the condition has not progressed beyond the point where it already requires surgery. For doctors and patients alike, this is great news. After all, no one would want to risk surgery given all the potential complications that may arise from the procedure.

However, there are also times when surgery becomes the best treatment for lower back pain and no other method will suffice. This is usually because a herniated disc is damaged enough that it is permanently pressing on the nerve roots surrounding its location resulting in extreme and continuous pain. When this happens, rest or medication may not be sufficient to treat the condition. Even epidural injections only provide temporary and short relief when a herniated disc has progressed to a significantly advanced stage. Under these circumstances surgery may become the only option for a permanent and satisfactory solution.

There are many types of back surgery that can be used for treating lower back pain. In the mildest of cases, the protruding spinal disc is shaved so that the mass of bone impinging on the nerves is reduced. In more advanced cases, removal of the disc is required. When this happens, recovery time can take up to 3 months, but if done successfully it will provide permanent relief from the nagging pain brought about by the herniated disc.

Naturally, at the core of assessing which is the best treatment for lower back pain is the debate between necessity, benefit, and risk. This is what doctors use to decide which treatment procedure to prescribe to a specific patient. Is this procedure necessary? Are there other procedures that carry fewer risks and will still hopefully deliver the same benefit? Would you want to risk a serious back operation if a 2 or 3 week bed rest along with medication would do the job? Doctors constantly weigh these considerations in order to provide their patients with the best and safest option for treating lower back pain.

So the next time you suffer from severe back problems, do not immediately start trying a lot of self- help techniques for treating lower back pain. Instead, see a doctor to get a more complete picture of your condition. Go through the diagnostic steps. Assess your options. Only after youve done this will you have enough knowledge to choose the right treatment plan. When done properly, you can be confident that your chosen treatment method is the best for your specific condition. In the end, that is all matters. As long as you are getting pain relief by using the lowest risk options available, then you have done a superb job in making sure you are getting the best treatment for lower back pain.