Low Back Pain: Cause and Effect

More than eight out of 10 of you reading this article right now will, at some point in your life, experience low back pain. Whether you get diagnosed with a bulging disc, herniated disc, scoliosis, stenosis or don’t have any diagnosis at all yet, low back pain can be debilitating, both physically and mentally.

Balancing Mobility and Stability

Your lumbar spine can flex and extend front-to-back, allow you to bend side-to-side, and rotate from left-to-right. That is a lot of movement in multiple directions. While carrying out all these various movements, your lumbar spine is also responsible for stabilizing the weight of your torso and upper body. It is a demanding task but when functioning fully, the spine is more than up to the challenge.

Compensation and Pain

Just like the spine must balance various tasks, our other load joints (the shoulders, hips, knees, and ankles) have similar shared responsibilities. If the function of one of our joints becomes compromised, the body redistributes those tasks elsewhere.

When the lumbar spine starts compensating for decreased function elsewhere in the body, the muscles around the spine start to adapt. Some muscles become too tight or too loose, others too strong or too weak, others still develop some combination of those traits.

As muscle function starts to change, the lumbar spine also adjusts, which is equal parts amazing and painful. Vertebrae begin to shift on top of one another, tilt to one side or the other, compress closer together, rotate out of alignment, etc. And, a lot of the time, those vertebral movements result in one of the aforementioned conditions and pain.

Physically you are hurting, and mentally you are scared, confused and probably feeling a bit lost as to what to do to cure your pain.

**The What Versus the Why**

The diagnosis you received about your low back isn’t the problem. Your bulging disc, herniated disc or spinal stenosis tell you what is wrong with you, but that diagnosis doesn’t tell you why that condition is happening. Understanding the cause, the why, is essential if you want to get rid of your pain once and for all.

Your lumbar spine is doing a job that it isn’t designed to do, and it’s telling you as much. When you recreate proper joint function throughout the body, you will be well on your way to living a pain-free life.

Low Back Pain: Cause and Effect