It’s tempting to rush to label back pain – and we love to blame structures like discs or arthritis. Unfortunately, back pain is rarely caused by a structure (like a bad disc or arthritis) and is almost always caused by a reduction of flexibility.

Is My Pain Related to a Bad Disc or Arthritis Video

Key Takeaways:

• How your spine looks (in imaging) and how you feel are two very separate things
• In a study of healthy, SYMPTOM-FREE adults, MRIs revealed very high levels of arthritis, disc problems, and other structural issues related to the spine
• As we age, we normally accrue more and more of these structural problems
• However, since these structural issues don’t cause any pain in the symptom-free adult, we know they aren’t usually the true cause of pain
• Back pain is most commonly caused by a loss of function (loss of stability and flexibility)
• Fix the loss of function, fix the pain! Regardless of the level of arthritis or disc issues

Were you told your back pain was caused by arthritis?

This is pretty common. The great news is that it’s not a death sentence. Since (most of the time) the pain is not directly caused by arthritis – we can still help! Call our Burlington office at 336-270-3050 or use the link below to schedule and find out what chiropractic care can do for you.

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Is My Pain Related to a Bad Disc or Arthritis Video Transcript

DISCLAIMER: This is a direct transcript of the video audio and may not be grammatically correct.

Sometimes what your spine and what your discs actually look like on imaging, have nothing to do with your pain. This for some patients is encouraging since they are hearing all the negatives that are associated with how the spine looks on imaging and what that can mean for them in the future. 

Some patients come in talking about how they had imaging 10 or 15 years ago and they were told they had disc degeneration or that they have arthritis in their back or even that they have a disc bulge. They often associate those findings with what is causing their pain and that nothing can help them.

What you see on imaging does not always relate to your pain.

Unfortunately, patients are told or are understanding that whatever they see on imaging is the explanation for their pain. I’m here to tell you that in most cases, that is completely not the truth, especially, 10 or 15-year-old imaging. That imaging is considered outdated and has nothing to do with whatever is going on in your life right now.

In a lot of cases, you might have pain which makes you go to an orthopedic surgeon or whomever and they do imaging and they see a disc bulge or a disc herniation. Sometimes we attribute our pain to what we can see on the imaging but in most cases, the pain does not correlate with what is on the image. 

Your pain has nothing to do with the actual structure of the spine. When I say “the structure”, I mean the actual physical components of the spine. For example, your pain may have nothing to do with arthritis or a disc bulge that you see on imaging.  

The study on pain-free people

To explain further, there was a study done where they imaged people who had no back pain at all but came across different findings like disc degeneration or arthritis. When you look at this study and look at the group of 30-40-year-olds, roughly 52% will have some form of disc degeneration and be completely asymptomatic.

You might come into the office and say that you had imaging 5 years ago and there was a disc bulge that they found and that is why your lower back is hurting. With the evidence of this study, we can say that is probably unlikely because there is up to 60% of people with disc bulges have absolutely no pain. 

There is a great quote by an orthopedic surgeon that states how a patient’s pain has nothing to do with the structural diagnosis. It has nothing to do with a disc bulge or arthritis, it has everything to do with the function of the low back.

The function of your low back is just a fancy way to say how your low back move and how is it stabilized. If the function of the spine is optimal then you tend to not have any pain even with a disc bulge seen on imaging. 

What does it mean when my spine is functioning well?

Basically, you have a good ability to stabilize your spine with what is called intra-abdominal pressure. You also probably have the ability to control your movements in your spine. If any of these are off then that is when you begin to have pain in your back. 

This is actually reassuring because we can’t change your structural findings but we can change the function. We can work on intra-abdominal pressure and learn how to properly stabilize the spine. We can work on increasing our range of motion within our spine to keep muscles from getting too tight. 

As a patient, you don’t have to get caught up in thinking that since you have arthritis you are going to be in pain for the rest of your life. That’s simply not true because we can take patients who have arthritis, who have disc problems, who even have spondylolisthesis and get them feeling better.

Overall, when it comes to back pain it is important to remember that it is related to function and there is room for improvement in order to get you out of pain. Always remember to live with passion and not pain.