Blog #back pain myths

t turns out that pain in general and back pain in particular is a lot more complicated than most of us think. When it comes to backs, our natural assumption that pain equals damage just isn’t reliable.

How many times have you heard someone with a sore back say, “Oh, my back is out again? Clients who say this to me usually mean that some component of their back has shifted to a new and uncomfortable position. These people believe their pain will be relieved when this component is put back where it should be. This is wrong on both counts.

There are several "common sense" adaptations to back pain which don't help and may even make things worse.

Back pain is the most common reason people have for coming to see me in my clinic. And it’s not just me; back pain takes up a huge amount of the time and resources of the healthcare system as a whole. More people take time off work because of back pain than for any other reason and it is also the single most frequent cause of visits to GPs. It’s no exaggeration to say that there is a back pain epidemic in Australia. You’d think for something so common, we’d have a pretty good understanding of back pain but the fact is we don’t, not the general public and not always clinicians. So I’m going to list a series of back pain myths and misconceptions over the next several weeks...