Back Facts from BOOST PHYSIO NW4 and N2

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12 years ago

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