Diagnosing Spinal Pain

As most of us know, the human spine is a really complex organ. It is composed of 33 bones with a range of joints, discs and tissues. It also has several muscles attached to it along with several tendons and ligaments which provide support to the backbone and the nerves surrounding it. So you can imagine the number of things that can go wrong in such a complicated structure, which makes spinal pain extremely tricky to diagnose. Some of the more major reasons for the difficulty in diagnosing spinal pain are listed below.

Overlapping symptoms

It is quite obvious when you have a sprained ankle or when you have a whiplash. But when it comes to spinal pain, the symptoms aren’t always that clear cut. For example, you can observe that lower back pain is pretty tough to diagnose as the symptoms suggest that the cause might be from a variety of sources. It would be easier for the doctors to better diagnose your problem if you are pretty descriptive about your symptoms. Some doctors even suggest their patients to keep a pain journal to keep a record of the occurrence of their symptoms and their severity to identify triggers.

Different response to treatment

Even after the diagnosis is made, patients respond differently to the same treatment as the same disorder might be caused because of different reason. Because of this reason the treatment for spinal pain can be a type of trial and error process. The source of your pain will also determine whether you will respond positively to physical therapy, medications or exercise.

Contributing factors of spine

Many other external factors also affect spinal pain. Some factors such as sleep habits, underlying health issues, posture and also the footwear you normally wear can all contribute to you worsening spinal condition. If the spinal pain is caused because of these reasons, they can easily be resolved at home.