What is the reason for Back Pain?

Posture -Back pain most commonly results from poor posture. Sometimes it is due to poor body mechanics like standing for extended periods of time or sitting in an incorrect posture. Back injury, heavy physical work, lifting, bending, twisting, or awkward positions might act a precursor to triggering back pain.

Injury -A sudden fall, car crash, or sports injury can cause a sprain or strain. When a back injury occurs, muscles, ligaments, and tendons become over-stretched and swollen up, causing pain, tenderness, and stiffness.

The three common causes of back pain include:

Muscle strains: Strained muscles, tendons or ligaments or inflamed joints may cause pain along your spine.


Osteoarthritis: This degenerative joint condition affects nearly everyone past the age of 60, Old age and injury can slowly lead to deterioation of the cartilage. Cartilage is the protective tissue that covers the surface of the joints of the vertebrae.

Osteoporosis: One in three women who are older than 50 can be affected by osteoporosis and this can lead to painful vertebral compression fractures.

What are the Triggering factors for Back Pain?

Triggering Factors -The episode of back ache might result either from a strenuous event or previous history. Even psycho-social risk factors like stress, distress, anxiety, depression, cognitive functioning, job dissatisfaction and mental stress can play a role in triggering back ache. There may be some deep underlying causes of low back pain, few of which include:

Fracture of vertebral bones
Slipped disc; disc bulges out of vertebral joint and puts pressure on spinal nerves
Spinal stenosis; owing to narrowing of spinal space,pressure is induced upon the spinal nerves
Spondylolithesis; when one of the back bones slips forward and out of position
Degenerative disc disease; when the discs in spinal cord gradually gets worn out
Osteoarthritis; a wear-and-tear disease of bones
Rheumatoid arthritis; an inflammatory condition of joints
Carcinoma or benign tumors
Kidney stones
Endometriosis
Pelvic inflammatory disease in females

Sometimes a routine activities such as gardening, picking up a child, reaching for an object or even coughing, can trigger back ache.