Low Back Pain

Low back pain is one of the most frequent injury sustained in the workplace, and accounts for a large proportion of absenteeism and disability. In the majority of cases, the cause of low back pain is musculoskeletal in origin. The muscles, tendons, or the ligaments are injured, sometimes resulting in injury to the intervertebral discs, which are in fact cartilages. The nerves that travel in the vicinity of the spine can also be injured or compressed, resulting in severe pain.

When the cause of the pain is due to a musculoskeletal cause, rest, physical therapy, and antiinflammatory medications for a period of time, usually up to two or three weeks, will result in improvement in the vast majority of cases. Some symptoms which require immediate physician attention are numbness or weakness of the legs, bladder or bowel difficulty, or the inability to walk.

The most important thing to remember that low back pain can be a symptom of a disorder of internal organs, such as the kidneys, ovaries, uterus, rectum, or prostate. Any back pain associated with urinary symptoms such as painful urination or blood, vaginal discharge or abnormal bleeding, blood in the stool or tarry stool, or difficulty with starting the urinary stream, could be serious and require a physician evaluation. It is not uncommon that an undetected infection or tumor is the cause of low back pain.

Please contact your personal physician if you have any of the above symptoms.