This is unbelievable! Why is it that according to clinical research, the most common type of back pain in 85% of cases is identified and classified as nonspecific? ¹

From a medical standpoint, the reasons why people have back pain remains unclear for a majority of the cases. Many patients are tired of being told by their doctors that “their back pain is all in your head”. But why is that and what does “nonspecific back pain” actually mean?

This is part 2 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 - Understanding Nonspecific Back Pain: What You Need to Know
• 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

One out of five teens are suffering from back pain—what’s happening to our kids?

Teenagers aren’t exempt either. Their chance to develop unspecific chronic back pain during their lifetimes varies between 11% and 83%. With one out of 5 teenagers reporting having had one or more episodes of low back pain. The pain being so severe that 3 out of 4 teens had to consult a healthcare professional.² We’re talking about kids between 12 and 18 years here.

Youngsters are suffering, but what is the real cause?

So you’re telling me there are people with visible disc bulges which don’t have back pain?!

What if the real cause of your back pain has nothing to do with your spine?

No matter how many X-Rays, MRI’s or other investigations you’re going to get, they might or may not see the normal wear and tear of the spine. Incidentally, or accidentally, during a MRI of healthy people, doctors might find various structural problems in the spine while the patients have no complaints at all. ³ In other words. Patients who don’t have back pain may have degenerative issues found by accident during investigations such as herniated disks, yet these are asymptomatic. ⁴

Asymptomatic individuals with disk bulges increased from 30% for those 20 years of age to nearly 84% for those 80 years or older. The conclusions of this study³ states: “Imaging findings of spine degeneration are present in high proportions of asymptomatic individuals, increasing with age. Many imaging-based degenerative features are likely part of normal aging and unassociated with pain. T” ⁵

This raises an important question. If people have visible degeneration of the spine yet they lack any symptoms of back pain. What’s happening? Why don’t they feel pain? And more importantly Why do healthy people feel pain and have no structural causes (called nonspecific) in 85% of the cases!?

These are very important questions relating to pain in general, chronic pain patients who suffer for years and back pain in our case. But before I can answer these questions fully we must go and see which treatment exist and why people remain in pain despite following prescribed treatments!

Somatic Exercises and movements have been found very effective even in clinical trials in treating almost any kind of pain including back pain simply because it works by retraining our nervous system.

The remaining 10 to 15% of the causes of back pain

So if 85% of cases are nonspecific, what are the rest of the cases of back pain?

Let’s go over over the remaining 15%.

5% of lower back pain is attributed to nerve root pain, such as sciatica, propapsed disc (slipped) or herniated discs. This again can be 90% of the remaining 5%.

Not what you expected, right? Most websites and doctors talk about diferent causes for back pain and most of them hint to real problems of the spine and back. Yet, these account for a maximum of 10% of total problems!

Arthritis in back pain

Arthritis also known as osteoarthritis or spondilosys is regarded as the normal wear and tear of your spine which can cause back pain due to improper usage and old age. Your discs, vertebras and cartilages get worn out.

There are also other forms of arthritis which are inflamatory and autoimmune such as ankylosing spondylitis in which the spine calcifies and reumathod arthritis which affects all joints.

I’ll reserve a future article specially for arthritis in depth as we’ll get to see that cartilages CAN AND DO repair themselves almost all the time. In cases when they fail, it’s due to improper movement, and somatosensory amnesia which keeps the body thight and some other reasons. In order to HEAL you need to MOVE!

Spinal Fractures, sprains and strains

• Spinal fractures can be caused by the bones in your spine breaking during accidents or traumatic events.
• Herniated disks bulge and cause back pain in the neck, lower back and they can cause a plethora of problems if they’re located in the thoracic spine simply because they irritate a nerve root.

The problem with these bulges and herniated disks is that they can affect many functions of our body. Those in the thoracic spine especially can cause weird symptoms which have no logic explanation and can be attributed to other problems. Imagining being out of breath, and feeling as if your heart hurts. Not a heart attack but a nerve issue!

• Strains and sprains can occur in the tendons, ligaments or muscles of your back from lifting heavy things, doing exercises without proper warmup and are also generated whiled doing complex movements such as twisting and bending over, twisting and torquing. Our body is a wonder, and please don’t laugh, but back pain can also be caused by sneezing or coughing.

Other back pain issues

There are some other common back pain causes, including:

• Menstrual cramps and pregnancy can cause back pain.
• Working and using your back all day with hard labor is also attributed to pain and can be any
• Structural issues such as spinal stenosis when your spinal column is too narrow for your spinal cord. Bone spurs which are small abnormal
• There’s also referred pain from spine tumors, kidney stones and other inflamatory conditions, all of which can cause lower back pain

Yet, pleaser remember, that all of these only account for a maximum of 15% causes of back pain.

These need to be looked after and treated properly.

Risk factors for back pain

Come on doctor, give me the details and risk factors! You want to know what to avoid, right? What are the risk factors which influence the risks of developing back pain?

• Age - The older you become, the more back pain you will encounter. At least this is what we’re told because most of our older population is declining in health. IN reality, this isn’t related to age, but to the other factors which we’ll discuss, there’s even something called “the myth of aging”.

• Genetic predisposition can be a component IF there are severe malformations. If anything science shown is that even with genetic predispositions, lifestyle has a huge impact on those genes activating or deactivating. One ]pioneer of somatic education, Elsa Gindler](https://linsublim.com/somatics-history/) was able to solve her scoliosis by pure somatic breathing exercises⁶

• Mental health is an important predictor in any form of pain. Distress such as anxiety and depression can cause an excarberation of back pain. Emotions impact our pain perception. ⁷

• Job related factors will cause low back pain if your job is physically demanding.

Sedentarism

Think your lifestyle doesn’t affect your back pain? Think again!

Sedentarism can be defined as the Lack of movement or fitness level. Being physically fit lowers your back pain chance, while being sedentary increases your risk. Yes, Motion is lotion. Movement, especially practicing regular physical exercise sends a variety of signals to the muscles, ligaments, and bones to become stronger because we’re using them. The opposite is also true, when we don’t use something, the body starts breaking it down. Biology is scary, so keep moving.

A link between low back pain and physical activity has been described as a U-shaped relationship in statistics. Where increased risk was found for both subjects with a sedentary and inactive lifestyle and those practicing strenuous activities and sports. Indeed excess activities and back-unhealthy activities can cause back pain. ⁸ Before you get worried, understand that most performance athletes practice between 25 to 30 hours a week, way more than everyone else. Most of them need to learn how to properly use their bodies in a biomechanical way and some get drastic improvements by practicing somatics.

Weekend warriors, those who are sedentary 5 days of the week, and have a massive exercise spurt in one day the weekend can develop bouts of low back pain. THis is usually due to unreleased tensions, not doing a proper warmup and forcing tendons, ligaments without proper loading. Not to mention poor movement mechanics and posture. All exercises need to grow in intensity withot force.

It’s been seen that back pain improves with movement, especially when it’s somatic movement and exercises.

The number one thing you can do to avoid a sedentary lifestyle is to take a break every 50 minutes and do 10 minutes of exercise to put your blood pumping.

In Part 3 we’ll Unravel the Ineffectiveness of Traditional Back Pain Therapies and Treatments: A Scientific Perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter!