28 Jul What Causes Low Back Pain In Women?
You may be wondering: what causes low back pain in women?
Women suffer from low back pain slightly more frequently than men. So what causes low back pain in women? Well the answer is, a lot of things.
There’s a bunch of conditions that we’re going to label lump together as “mechanical low back pain” and these are the sorts of things that affect everyone. The joints, tissues, discs and basically any structure of the spine that is innervated can be the site of injury, pain and inflammation. This is the pain that happens when you lift something heavy, tweak your back or “throw it out”, sit for too long in a car, or just simply wake up with it. These things aren’t specific to women, but there is evidence to suggest that they happen more in women.
So, researchers are looking into other factors to figure out why: is it because women are just more likely to report low back pain or seek help for it, or is there something else going on? Pretty much every single one of those research papers ends with some phrase about how they have more unanswered questions, so maybe time will tell.
Mechanical causes aside, then there are the conditions that can cause back pain that are specific to uterus-havers: PMS, period cramps, endometriosis, uterine fibroids, hormone changes like those that happen in menopause, all the anatomical changes that happen with pregnancy, and the list goes on. These types of low back pains usually have patterns that correspond to menstrual cycles. Again, any structure that is near to the spine, and supplied with nerve endings can send a signal to the brain that is interpreted as “back pain.” It’s part of what makes the story about back pain complicated, is it a spinal structure? Is something going on with the pelvic organs?
When you seek out a health care professional for your back pain, whether it’s a Chiropractor, a Physiotherapist, a Medical Doctor, or anyone else, their job is to ask lots of questions to rule in and rule out conditions, make an educated judgement about the most likely cause of your pain, and create a treatment plan for that pain. They can then monitor your response to the plan, and adjust it when necessary, i.e., if your physio has you doing glute and core exercises, and your back pain goes away, it probably was mechanical, and strengthening your body will go a long way to preventing it in the future.
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