Seeking Additional Help for Back Pain and the Tests Performed

By: Todd Brackett

Do You Know When to Seek Medical Advice?

Most back pain gradually improves with home treatment and self-care. Although it may take several weeks before it completely disappears, you should notice some improvement within the first 72 hours of self-care. If not, see your doctor.

The odds are in your favor but it is possible that back pain can mean a more serious health concern. Go to the hospital if your back pain: is constant or intense, especially when lying down or at night, travels down your legs, causes weakness, numbness or tingling in one or both legs, causes bowel problems, is causing you to run a fever, follows a fall, blow to your back or other injury, or is accompanied by unexplained weight loss.

Also, see your doctor if this is new pain and you're older than age 50 or have a history of cancer, osteoporosis, steroid use, or drug or alcohol abuse.

Assessing Your Back Pain

Testing isn't usually required to determine your cause of back pain. However, if you do see your doctor for back pain, he or she will examine your back and assess your ability to sit, stand, walk and lift your legs. He will also use a variety of reflex tests. Your doctor will perform these tests to ascertain if your back pain is coming from the upper, middle, or lower spine and also if this pain is limiting your ability to move. If it helps, think of this as a quiz that is ultimately trying to determine if a more serious reason exists for your aching back.

If there is reason to suspect that you have a tumor, fracture, infection or other condition that may be causing your back pain, your doctor may order one or more tests:

CT or MRI scans. These scans can generate images that may reveal herniated disks or problems with bones, muscles, tissue, tendons, nerves, ligaments and blood vessels.

X-ray. This will produce an image which shows whether or not you have a broken bone, or degenerative joint disease. X-ray images won't directly show problems with your spinal cord, muscles, fibrous tissues (fascia), nerves or disks.

Nerve studies (electromyography, or EMG). This test measures the electrical impulses produced by the nerves and the responses of your muscles. Studies of your nerve-conduction pathways can confirm nerve compression caused by herniated disks or narrowing of your spinal canal (spinal stenosis).

Bone scan. In rare cases, your doctor may use a bone scan to look for bone tumors or compression fractures caused by osteoporosis. In this procedure, you'll receive an injection of a small amount of a radioactive substance (tracer) into one of your veins. The substance collects in your bones and allows your doctor to detect bone problems using a special camera.

Article Source: http://www.articlesnatch.com

About the Author:
Todd Brackett is a lower back pain expert and is a critic on back pain relief cures. When are you going to get tired enough of back pain to do something about it? Do something about your back pain right now, go to No More Chronic Back Pain ,which is the better way to get back pain relief.

Tags: health, back pain, chronic back pain

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