Are you one of the 1 billion people suffering from low back pain?

Did you know that chronic back pain can actually shrink your brain by 11%?

Low back pain (LBP) is a widespread global health issue that affects millions, transcending age and lifestyle. This common yet debilitating condition can significantly impact daily life, work productivity, and mental well-being. With estimates suggesting that up to 80% of people will experience lower back pain at some point in their lives, its implications are staggering and often underestimated. In this article, you will learn about the silent ways low back pain can take control of your life. Understanding the real causes and solutions to low back pain is the first step toward breaking free from its grip.

This is part 1 of the series Unraveling the Mystery of Back Pain A 4-Part Deep Dive:

• Part 1 - The Truth About Back Pain: Who’s Really Suffering? - Statistics
• Part 2 - The Myth of Structural Damage: The True Culprit Behind Back Pain
• Part 3 - Unraveling the Ineffectiveness of Traditional Back Pain Therapies: A Scientific Perspective
• Part 4 - The Somatic Solution: A Path to Lasting Back Pain Relief

My back pain story is similar to that of millions of people. I tried countless remedies. I found the key that unlocked my body’s healing potential, allowing me to regain my freedom. So I’m on the journey to inform YOU on the statistics of back pain, existing back pain treatments and help YOU find true back pain relief. Knowing this you’ll be better able to regain your life from the debilitiating side effects of back pain.

20% of adults experience low back pain yearly

The World Health Organization (WHO) has recognized the low back pain crisis as a leading cause of disability worldwide. According to the WHO and continuing research, it’s estimated that to 84%¹ of the global population will experience low back pain at some point in their lives. ^{2 3}

15% to 20% of adults are having serious back pain episodes during a single year!
That’s 1.2 Billion to 1.64 BILLION people worldwide which suffer from back pain. Imagine all the population of China or India having back pain at once. Everything would stand still.

Unfortunately, 25% of people who’ve experienced back pain live with chronic back pain for years without finding any real solution, while 1 in 10 is in disability. This could be you, a loved one, a friend or anyone.

Acute low back pain is the second reason for consultations in general medicine, with chronic low back pain being the eighth ¹. One in five lumbar back pain episodes result in sick leave. What’s concerning is the fact that 30% of the sick leaves which last longer than 6 months are due to back pain!

The economic impact of low back pain

The socioeconomic burden of low back pain is substantial. It leads to significant absenteeism and presenteeism. Presenteism is when individuals attend work despite being in pain and not feeling well, resulting in reduced productivity and increased healthcare costs. You’ve probably been to work while not feeling well, I did it, almost everyone does it because we’re thought to “work it through”.

In the United States alone, it is calculated that low back pain costs $100.000.000.000 ($100 billion) ⁴ of dollars annually in healthcare expenses and lost productivity and disability. Adjusting the numbers to inflation from 2016 to 2024 brings the cost to $159 BILLION per year.

The Physical and Emotional Toll of back pain

Beyond the financial implications, low back pain can have a profound impact on an individual’s quality of life. It can interfere with daily activities, limit mobility, and disrupt sleep patterns, affect libido and has a host of other side effects depending on it’s duration.

Recurring back pain

But the bad luck of those with back pain is not over.

Anyone currently suffering from back pain has a 69% chance that their low back pain will be recurring within the next 12 months. ⁵

2 out of 5 people (40%) will be unable to do many daily activities due to the pain intensity. ⁵ The median time between recurrances is around 136 days.

Even sadder is that 4 out of 10 people receiving any kind of treatment are still having low back pain afterwards. Talking about bad luck or simply the ineffectiveness of those treatments.

Chronic back pain diminishes your life and shrinks your brain

When you’ve had that nagging backache for so long without any solution, it will developt into chronic pain which in itself is a complex topic I will cover in it’s own article.

Chronic pain also leads to emotional distress, including anxiety, depression, reduced self-esteem. But the bad news is not over, it lowers your intellect. Yes, unfortunately, chronic back pain shrinks the neocortex by 11%, thus reducing the brain size. ⁶ Meaning that creativity, thinking, and decision making are all affected. It sucks the life out of people and their emotions, relationships and lives are ruined since many go into disability. Now you’ll probably understand why the mainstream saying of “no pain no gain” is stupid and dangerous dangerous.

There is some good news, when pain becomes chronic after 3 or more months, it’s usually a nervous system dysfunction, and as you’ll learn in the next article , most physical ailments CAN get healed by then BUT the brain still sends pain signals no matter which treatments you take.

This is where Somatic Exercises outperform all other treatments. Somatics work with the nervous system and are specially designed to help you recover and find relief from back pain wheter it’s acute or chronic pain.

What is causing back pain?

There are many variables to what is actually causing back pain, frequent exposure to awkward and bad postures, long time sitting (more than 5 hours a day).

In part Part 2 we’ll explore The Myth of Structural Damage and we discover The True Culprit Behind what is causing Back Pain together with all other potential causes of lower back pain.

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