What Causes Back Pain?
Back pain can have several causes. You could have short-term or acute back pain after an accident, a sports injury, or another type of injury. Long-term (or chronic) back pain lasts for a minimum of three months.
Common causes of chronic back pain include:
- Osteoarthritis: Cartilage in your spinal cord begins to break down, leading to symptoms such as swelling and pain.
- Age-related spinal degeneration: Discs in the back begin to lose their water content, which causes deterioration. You may experience burning pains, bone-on-bone pain, or numbness.
- Scoliosis: Side-to-side curvature of the spine that can be present from birth or develop over time. Symptoms include back pain, fatigue, and uneven shoulders and hip heights.
- Fibromyalgia: Pain throughout your body that is sometimes triggered by another event and often has no apparent cause. The pain may be dull, shooting, and ongoing on both sides of your body.
- Herniated disc: Tissue between the joints in your back comes out of place. Common symptoms of herniated discs include muscle weakness and arm and leg pain.
Acute and chronic back pain usually respond well to noninvasive therapy.
Back Pain Risk Factors
Back pain is common among all different types of people, but you may be more at risk if you are older, overweight, work a physical job, or have anxiety or depression.
Should I Visit a Back Doctor?
Back pain often leads to other physical problems like reduced range of motion, pain in the lower body, extreme stiffness, and back spasms. Without treatment, these symptoms may worsen. Visit a back doctor near you to avoid worsening your condition.
How Can I Prevent Back Pain?
You can do a few things to prevent back pain or reduce your risk of injury. Start by practicing good posture with your spine straight and your shoulders back.
Include a regular exercise program with strength training to improve your score, but don’t overdo it. When lifting heavy loads, center yourself well and lift with your legs instead of with your back.
What Are Treatments for Back Pain?
Elite Sports Medicine and Orthopedics offers a variety of back pain treatments in Nashville and Franklin customized for your situation. Most causes of back pain improve with conservative treatments, including physical therapy, activity modification, anti-inflammatory medication, and hot and cold compresses.
For persistent back pain, you might benefit from epidural steroid injections that deliver a potent anti-inflammatory directly to the source of your pain. If your condition hasn’t improved after several months, you may need to consider surgical options.
What Surgical Options Might an Orthopedic Back Doctor Recommend?
The surgery required to treat your back pain varies according to the cause of your pain and its severity. Some of the surgeries the Elite Sports Medicine and Orthopedics team specializes in include:
- Laminectomy: Removal of the lamina of a vertebra to decrease pressure or pain on the spinal cord.
- Microdiscectomy: Removal of the part of your spinal disc causing nerve pain.
- Artificial disc replacement (cervical spine only): Removal of the damaged disc from the cervical area of your spine and replacement with an artificial disc.
- ACDF (anterior cervical discectomy and fusion): Removal of herniated discs, followed by fusing two or more vertebrae.
- ALIF (anterior lumbar interbody fusion): Removal of a damaged disc. A bone graft is put in its place to facilitate the fusion over several months.
- OLIF (oblique lumbar interbody fusion): Removal of a damaged disc, which the doctor replaces with an interbody device, resulting in bone fusion.
- LLIF (lateral lumbar interbody fusion): Removal of a damaged disc to facilitate bone fusion, completed from the side of the body.
- PSIF (posterior spinal instrumented fusion): Removal of the painful disc, which the surgeon replaces with bone graft to facilitate vertebrae fusion. The doctor completes this surgery from the back of the body.
Contact Elite Sports Medicine and Orthopedics Today
Our spine specialists in Nashville and Franklin, Tennessee, perform back surgery using minimally invasive techniques wherever possible to minimize your discomfort and help you recover more quickly. We have advanced technology and procedures to help you heal and get back to living the life you want.
Our experienced staff performs diagnostic testing and provides treatment within our comprehensive facilities. If you need a back pain doctor in Nashville, choose Elite Sports Medicine and Orthopedics. Whether you require physical therapy, injections, or minimally invasive surgeries, our spine and back doctors in Nashville and Franklin are here to help.
To learn more about treatments for back pain, contact us through online booking or call one of our convenient locations to schedule your appointment today.
Our Back Pain Specialists
