Have You Really Tried To Stop Your Back Pain?

When was the last time you seriously asked yourself: am I in physical pain?

As a young or middle-aged adult, it’s easy to go through life ignoring the small aches and pains over your body. After all, as a kid, these pains usually mean nothing and more often than not, they just get better on their own.

But the worst kind of pain is the kind that slowly creeps up on you, increasing in intensity and annoyance little by little over time. Eventually, one day you will wake up with a pain you can no longer ignore, and by then the problem might already be much worse than it was, making treatment just that much more difficult.

For most Australians, this scenario isn’t that far-fetched. For most of us, this comes in the form of back pain.

Back Pain: An Australian Epidemic

For Australians, back pain is a huge problem. In fact, when it comes to back pain, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has a number of shocking statistics:

• Nearly 4 million Australians reported back pain to a physician in 2014
• Back pain is the third leading cause of pain burden for Australians in 2011
• 80% of those suffering back problems have additional problems with self-care, communication, and mobility
• Around 70-90% of Australians will experience some form of back pain during their lives, but most will leave it untreated

So how do you know that the pain you are experiencing is actually “back pain”? Typically, if you a long-term ache in your back—anywhere from the bottom of your neck to the bottom of your spine—this is most likely back pain.

These problems include:

• Tingling, weakness, or numbing in your legs, beginning from the bottom of your spine
• Pressure on a part of your spine
• Neck pain, or stiff neck
• Pain caused by conditions or injuries anywhere around your back
• Joint wear and tear in the spine

What are the Causes of Back Pain?

Back pain can be caused by a number of factors. These include:

• Injuries (current or in the past)
• Bad posture such as slouching or resting your weight on one side
• Certain diseases, including osteoporosis and osteoarthritis
• Genetic conditions, which has recently been shown to have a huge impact on whether an individual develops back pain or not
• General age and fitness of a body
• Weight
• Work that involves heavy lifting

The biggest mistake that many people make is ignoring mild back pain, believing it to be the cause of a bad night of sleep or stress. But you don’t need a major issue to occur to truly injure your back.

Your back can be injured from incidents as trivial as sitting for too long, picking things up improperly, having little to no core strength, stress, and pre- and post-natal discomfort. If you begin to feel back pain, it might be time to treat it.