Back pain is one of the most common human ailments. If you are like most people, you will have at least one backache in your life. There are several causes of back pain – ranging from minor ones that cause no harm to more serious ones that need immediate and specific medical attention.

Generally, the causes of back pain can be categorized as followed:

1. Degenerative Vertebrae:
Your backbone is actually a stack of small bones called vertebrae and intervertebral discs. As you age, these bones suffer wear and tear from many years of use, causing the joints to become irregular and stiff. From overloading and heavy use, the rubbing bones develop spurs, resulting in back pain and stiffness. You may have been in a specific position for a long time, then suddenly, with one simple movement, the protruding bones press over the nerves running alongside the spine, causing a sharp pain along the nerve lines together with muscle spasm or weakness.

2. Inflammation :
Arthritis such as Rheumatoid arthritis or Ankylosing spondylitis, which is a chronic inflammatory form of arthritis that affects the spinal joints, resulting in backache.

3. Infection :
Tuberculosis of the spine, Intervertebral disc infection, which are mostly haematogenous, can also cause back pain. In some patients with a low immune system, other symptoms, such as fever, may also occur.

4. Metabolic disease:
Osteoporosis can cause spine bones to be porous and brittle. This often results in curvature and deformity of the spine and body.

5. Neoplastic Spine Disease:
Benign tumors form on the spinal canal or in the Epidural space. The tumors may press on the duramater or nerves, resulting in back pain.

Spine Cancer: Both primary and metastatic cancers can affect your spine or duramater. Back pain in this category is a gradual one. Some may experience night pain. Deconditioning symptoms such as weight loss can happen in some cases. Metastic cancer, that originates from the lungs may result in symptoms such as a cough or blood in the sputum.

6. Traumatic Back Pain:
A broken or collapsed spine. Misplacing of vertebrae or intervertebral discs are also a cause of this kind of back pain.

7. Congenital or developmental spine deformity:
Causes in this category are the result of the joining of vertebrae or the curvature of the spine or scoliosis. These deformities affect the spine’s structure, movement, and load, resulting in back pain.

8. Muscular or ergonomic back pain:
The most common cause of back pain. These include: muscle strain, myofascial pain syndrome, postural back pain and occupational back pain.

9. Visceral pain:
Back pain which results from lithonephritis, urolith, or appendicitis. Some may also show disorders in the organs involved.

10. Psychogenic back pain:
Stress can causes muscle stiffness and back pain. Patients who suffer conversion reaction are also susceptible to this.

Treatment of back pain should be started with correct diagnosis in determining the nature and cause of the pain. The aim of the treatment is to alleviate the pain in order to allow the patient to lead a normal life.


Treatment of back pain can be divided into 2 categories: non-surgical treatment and surgical treatment.