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You have different back pain types like acute or chronic which are the most common ones. Acute is then one where the injury or illness is not continuous or which doesn’t persist. Acute injuries happen quickly, shows some symptoms which can be really intense and can heal within a few weeks. Most often, an acute injury to the back or neck can be the reason for these types of back pain. Then you have the chronic pain which stays persistently in the same place and lasts for more than three to six months.
Next in the back pain types are specific back pain or non-specific back pain. Specific back pain is attributed to conditions which are identified such as cervical spondylosis or otherwise called as arthritis of the neck, spinal stenosis, spondylolisthesis, cervical kyphosis, scoliosis, kyphosis and whiplash injury. Non-specific type of back pain may be from muscles or other vertebral structures. People affected by this back pain type usually respond to conservative treatment. The non-specific back pain is further divided as musculoskeletal-nocioceptive pain which happens due to irritation caused to muscles, bones, tendons, ligaments or fascia. Next in this category of non-specific pain is the neuropathy types of back pain caused by a pinched nerve and this includes parasthesia, radiculopathy and pinched nerve. And finally you have the discogenic pain caused due to an intervertebral disk.
You may be wondering about how the different types of back pain are diagnosed. Well, the cause of back pain is mostly diagnosed by going through the history of the affected person and also with the help of a physical examination. Only 10% of the people affected by acute back pain need any special diagnostic testing. However, in some cases clinical tests also help in finding out the cause and source of back pain. But remember that in most of the cases, no tests are done unless the pain persists for more than four to six weeks.
There are also X-rays and other sophisticated imaging tests to diagnose low back pain. These tests are usually reserved for those who are suffering continuously for more than four to six weeks as people heal quickly otherwise. There are back pain types where the person experiences sudden pain from an injury. In that case these sophisticated tests are done to check if there is a fracture. In the same way, people who suffer from back pain at night need to do this test to rule out the chances of a tumor. People who show signs of infection in their backs, people who have cancer and those who suffer from incontinence with back pain need to undergo these tests.
