Pain Management

What is Lumbago?

Acute lumbago is when the function of your back muscles is limited, usually in the lumbar spine region. It often happens with everyday movements like lifting, bending, or getting up from a seated position. Lumbago is the body’s way of protecting itself – it’s a reflex response where your lower back muscles tense up. This protects the spine and nerve fibers from injury. The increased tension causes the usual symptoms of restricted movement and pain, but also brings greater sensitivity to pressure in the lumbar spine region. Good to know: lumbago doesn’t damage your spine. Your doctors won’t find any changes in “passive” structures such as vertebrae, discs and ligaments.

That is why lumbago is often categorized as non-specific back pain. It includes about 80% of acute and chronic back pain. Non-specific means that the cause of the pain is unknown. Why? Because conventional diagnostic procedures generally don’t reveal muscle tightness, fascial adhesions and myofascial imbalances.

What is Migraine?

A migraine is much more than a bad headache. This neurological disease can cause debilitating throbbing pain that can leave you in bed for days! Movement, light, sound and other triggers may cause symptoms like pain, tiredness, nausea, visual disturbances, numbness and tingling, irritability, difficulty speaking, temporary loss of vision and many more. A migraine is a common neurological disease that causes a variety of symptoms, most notably a throbbing, pulsating headache on one side of your head. Your migraine will likely get worse with physical activity, lights, sounds or smells. It may last at least four hours or even days. About 12% of Americans have this genetic disorder. Research shows that it’s the sixth most disabling disease in the world.

What is Dysmenorrhea?

Dysmenorrhea is the medical term for painful menstrual periods which are caused by uterine contractions. Primary dysmenorrhea refers to recurrent pain, while secondary dysmenorrhea results from reproductive system disorders. Both can be treated. Dysmenorrhea is the medical term for pain with your period or menstrual cramps. There are two types of dysmenorrhea: primary and secondary.

Primary dysmenorrhea is the name for common menstrual cramps that come back over and over again (recurrent) and aren’t due to other diseases. Pain usually begins one or two days before you get your period or when bleeding actual starts. You may feel pain ranging from mild to severe in the lower abdomen, back or thighs.

Pain can typically last 12 to 72 hours, and you might have other symptoms, such as nausea and vomiting, fatigue, and even diarrhea. Common menstrual cramps may become less painful as you get older and may stop entirely if you have a baby.

If you have painful periods because of a disorder or an infection in your FR organs, it is called secondary dysmenorrhea. Pain from secondary dysmenorrhea usually begins earlier in the menstrual cycle and lasts longer than common menstrual cramps. You usually don’t have nausea, vomiting, fatigue or diarrhea.

What is Osteoarthritis?

Arthritis refers to biomechanical changes within a joint. Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common kind of arthritis. There are a number of contributing factors to osteoarthritis, including age. Osteoarthritis, also known as degenerative joint disease (DJD), is the most common type of arthritis. Osteoarthritis is more likely to develop as people age. The changes in osteoarthritis usually occur slowly over many years, though there are occasional exceptions. Inflammation and injury to the joint cause bony changes, deterioration of tendons and ligaments and a breakdown of cartilage, resulting in pain, swelling, and deformity of the joint.

There are two main types of osteoarthritis:

-Primary: Most common, generalized, primarily affects the fingers, thumbs, spine, hips, knees, and the great (big) toes.

-Secondary: Occurs with a pre-existing joint abnormality, including injury or trauma, such as repetitive or sports-related; inflammatory arthritis, such as Rheumatoid, Psoriatic and Gout; infectious arthritis; genetic joint disorders.

What is Sciatica?

Sciatica pain is caused by an irritation, inflammation, pinching or compression of a nerve in the lower back. The most common cause is a herniated or slipped disk that causes pressure on the nerve root. Most people with sciatica get better on their own with time and self-care treatments.

Sciatica is nerve pain from an injury or irritation to the sciatic nerve, which originates in your buttock/gluteal area. The sciatic nerve is the longest and thickest (almost finger-width) nerve in the body. It’s actually made up of five nerve roots: two from the lower back region called the lumbar spine and three from the final section of the spine called the sacrum. The five nerve roots come together to form a right and left sciatic nerve. On each side of your body, one sciatic nerve runs through your hips, buttocks and down a leg, ending just below the knee. The sciatic nerve then branches into other nerves, which continue down your leg and into your foot and toes.

True injury to the sciatic nerve “sciatica” is actually rare, but the term “sciatica” is commonly used to describe any pain that originates in the lower back and radiates down the leg. What this pain shares in common is an injury to a nerve -- an irritation, inflammation, pinching or compression of a nerve in your lower back.