Up to 90% of all Americans experience back pain at some point in their lives. If you have ever experienced back pain, you know how inconvenient it can be. Pain in the lower back is even more painful. The thing about low back pain is that it is normally a disease in itself. Instead, it is usually indicative of another condition.
This is the start of a short series on back pain. The reason behind this is that I have had lower back pains for a week. I have always had back problems but I have not experienced this kind of pain before and it is seriously hampering my activities. I have been on pain killers for the past few days and even if they do alleviate the pain, it is not totally gone. So join me as I try to find out more about this condition called backache.
Emedicinehealth provides some interesting bits of information about back pain:
• Low back pain is second only to the common cold as a cause of lost days at work. It is also one of the most common reasons to visit a doctor’s office or a hospital’s emergency department.
• For 90% of people, even those with nerve root irritation, their symptoms will improve within 2 months, no matter what treatment is used—even if no treatment is given.
• Doctors usually refer to back pain as acute if it has been present for less than a month and chronic if it lasts for a longer period of time.
In the next post, let us look at the possible causes of back pain.
译文:
谈腰痛
多达90%的美国人在人生的某个阶段都会患有腰痛。如果你曾经患有腰痛，那么你肯定清楚那会多么不便。而下背部的疼痛更让人难受。通常，下背部疼痛本身是一种疾病。而更多时候它是另外一种身体状况的征兆。
这种征兆是短期连续背痛的开始。我这样说的含义是因为我自己经历过持续了一周的下背部疼痛。我的腰背经常有些小问题，但是我之前从未体验过这种疼痛，当我真正体验到时，我的生活受到了极大的困扰。在过去的几天里，我一直吃止痛药。而止痛药确实能缓解疼痛，但治标不治本，我并没有摆脱腰痛的困扰。那么，让我们一起来找出更多关于背痛的知识吧。
健康医学网提供了一些有趣的关于腰痛的小知识：
• 在影响人们正常工作的疾病排行榜上，下背痛的排名仅次于感冒。同时，下背痛病例也是诊所或医院急救部的最常见的病例之一。
• 90%的人们，即使是患有神经根刺激，不管接受了什么治疗，甚至不接受任何治疗，他们疼痛的症状在两个月内也会有所改善。
•在医学上，持续不够一个月的腰痛被成为急性腰痛；而持续了更长一段时间的被成为慢性腰痛。
下一篇，我们将会讨论引起腰痛的原因。