LOW BACK PAIN
INTRODUCTION
Many people suffering with low back pain which is either persistent or complicated require advanced care. Low back pain is an extremely common phenomenon involving almost 80% of the population at one time or other in their lifetime. Thirty to forty percent or even 50% of the people who have experienced the first episode of back pain continue to experience recurrent or persistent back pain. All back pain is not the same. For some, it may be just a “sore back,” for others, it may be a bothersome or aching pain, and for some others, it is severe and disabling and compromises their lifestyle.
Nerve blocks are a modality of therapeutic intervention available for treatment of chronic low back pain similar to surgery, drugs, manipulation, physical therapy, and behavior therapy. Since chronic low back pain has many individual causes, each patient must be treated differently. The Center’s unique approach to managing your pain is based on medical and scientific principles and treatment. Chronic low back pain is much too complex a medical problem to respond with anything less than comprehensive evaluation and management.
In general, we can tell where your pain is coming from based on your physical examination, history, X-ray, CT, and MRI evaluation, and nerve conduction studies in only approximately 15% of cases. However, in most cases (approximately 85%), physicians cannot identify an appropriate cause of pain. In these cases, diagnostic accuracy can be improved to approximately 85% with diagnostic nerve blocks, leaving another 15 to 20% who continue to remain without a proper diagnosis for their pain problems.
INCIDENCE
Low back pain is a disorder with many possible causes, occurring in diverse groups of the population, with not only multiple, but also quite variable definitions. There is no doubt that low back pain is an important clinical, social, economic, and public health problem affecting the population indiscriminately. In fact, Waddell described low back pain as a 20th century medical disaster. Waddell further stated that, “We can split the atom and send men to the moon and we now have cures which past generations would literally have thought were miracles - - - - yet we have no answer for simple backache.”
 Who suffers vs. How |
Occurrence of Back Pain with Age
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SEVERITY OF BACK & NECK PAIN
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