What is the cause (or causes) of lower back pain?

Can you pinpoint the exact cause of your lower back pain, so that you can treat it and get rid of the pain immediately?

Many people on the internet offer information on exact causes to help sell you a cure, and no doubt some of them even work. However, the concept of "cause" can be a tricky one - even to a doctor or other medical professional. Many people's acute (or short term) back pain will disappear naturally. If the person's pain symptoms disappear, they might attribute the disappearance to whatever treatment they were recieving, when - in fact - the pain simply dissapeared on it's own - the way a fever, cold, or a bad mood might simply go away on it's own.

Likewise, human beings are complicated. We have unique lifestyles, beliefs and experiences. Consider the popular medical idea that bone strength, muscle elasticity and muscle tone decrease with age. A related idea is that as we age the "discs" in the spine begin to lose fluid, flexibility and their ability to cushion and protect the vertebrae. Ok. As a general trend those some of those things may occur. But what about individual experience? And which factors are partially reversible?

A person's bone density will decrease with age and perhaps even the disks in parts of their spine. But some people have damage in their lower disks and they have no pain. Likewise some people lift weights and engage in other activities which increase bone density, so they do not automatically decrease. Individuals expereince needs to be considered.

Here are some purported cause of back pain, especially lower back pain. But keep in mind, many people also have the symptoms or conditions below but NO BACK PAIN.

• Injury or trauma to the back.
• Degenerative conditions such as Arthritis.
• Osteoporosis or other bone disease
• Viral infections
• Irritation to joints or discs
• Spine abnormalities that a person is born with

Got all that? Let's not forget so-called life-style factors such smoking, obesity, weight gain from pregnancy, stress, general bad posture, and bad posture in certain tasks such as when lifting heavy objects. There are also factors such as a pinched or compressed nerve.

Many people who have repeated low back pain episodes or chronic back pain are looking for symptom relief if not an outright cure. That leads us to talk about the various types of relief and remedy available for lower back pain. Ready?