• Tyrone Senior BOOST PHYSIO treating back pain

    About 80% of the population will experience significant low back pain

  • There are 5 vertebrae in your lower back (lumbar spine), 12 verterbrae in your mid-back (thoracic spine) and 7 vertebrae in your neck (cervical spine)
  • Each verterbra in the spine is separated by an intervertebral disc
  • Discs are cartilagenous with a jelly-like nucleus pulposus in the centre
  • Discs have a high water content- during the day the water gets squeezed out of the discs from the pressure of being upright- that is why you are shorter in height at the end of the day compared to when waking up!
  • Discs don’t slip- they do often bulge and tear though
  • About 30% of healthy pain free people are shown to have bulging discs on MRI scan!
  • Lumbar discs are the thickest discs in the spine because they carry much more load from the spine
  • X-rays for back pain are not very informative- MRI scans are much more detailed showing up discs, nerves and muscles
  • But even an MRI scan cannot detect if back pain is coming from muscles and ligaments
  • The centre of gravity of the human body is at the L4-L5 area of the spine (ie between Lumbar verterbrae 4 and 5)
  • The most common discs to be injured are the L4/L5 and the L5/S1 discs
  • The sciatic nerve is the thickness of your little finger!
  • When irritated, the sciatic nerve causes pain radiating down the leg- called sciatica