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Patient Fact Sheets.

The following articles appear in Lowbackpain.TV and may provide additional information about low back and spine related pain. Follow the links to access the full articles including a downloadable PDF Patient Fact Sheet.

Psychological Aspects of Pain
Pain alters how we think, feel and behave.

Thinking, or cognition, is the most important factor in how we function. Our cognitive processes effect how we feel and how we behave.

The drugs that are used in the treatment of pain have significant effects on the cognitive processes. Analgesics dull our cognitive processes. They have a tendency to add to depression, and they certainly make it harder to be motivated to not only think, but also do. Patients who take strong analgesics for control of chronic pain tend to think less, exercise less, become overweight and get more depressed. The decrease in the ability to think clearly is a primary reason for these effects.

Learn more about the Psychological Aspects of Pain [Read the full article...]

Low Back and Leg Pain: What does it mean?
Pain originating from the lower back may spread to other adjacent areas. The pain may spread up the back, or more commonly down to the buttocks, to the sacrum and coccyx area, and also down into the legs. Low back pain spreading into the legs may not necessarily be due to pinching or irritation of nerves, but may come from deeper structures in the back that tend to produce a deep, dull aching type of pain spreading elsewhere. The pain may spread down as far as the feet. Thus, there are two types of referred pains; radicular (nerve irritation) and somatic. It often may be difficult to determine where the pain is coming from, but sometimes the pain may be reproduced by pressing on various tender spots in the lower back and pelvis area. Usually targeted local anesthetic injections under x-ray guidance are required to make a diagnosis.
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Neck Pain and Headache:
Neck pain can be divided into acute and chronic pain.

• Acute pain is pain that has been present for less than six weeks,
• Chronic pain is pain that has been present for over three months.
  Between six weeks and three months some people still call this acute pain, some chronic pain and others create a new category, sub-acute pain.

Acute Neck Pain: Acute neck pain is most commonly idiopathic (of unknown cause) or attributed to a whiplash injury, serious causes of neck pain are rare (<1%). Degenerative changes, osteoarthrosis or spondylosis of the neck are neither causes nor risk factors for idiopathic neck pain. There is no evidence that “sprains” or “strains” of the neck muscles and ligaments occur and cause acute or chronic pain.

[Read the full article...]

Failed Back Surgery Syndrome:
In a sense this diagnosis is self-explanatory. Patients have failed to have an adequate response to their back surgeries. In many cases these patients may have more pain than prior to intervention.

There are a number of reasons why back surgery may fail. In some cases the surgery may have been technically good but the wrong diagnosis was made, resulting in no benefit being attained. Alternatively, there may be complications from the surgery itself or worsening of the underlying pathology.

Learn about this complex syndrome and the options that may be available to help alleviate pain.
[Read the full article...]