Had you ever wondered what is actually causing your lower back pain? Is it actually a disc, or a joint, or maybe a muscle? What if it is a combination of structures? More importantly, How can you tell? To help you understand what is causing your pain, below I describe symptoms of 4 types of Lower Back Pain.

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4 Types of Lower Back Pain

And How To Recognise Yours

If you’ve been dealing with lower back pain

You’ve probably wondered what exactly is causing this. Is it a disc, a muscle, a nerve, or is it something else entirely? The tricky part is lower back pain doesn’t always fit neatly into just one category, and that’s where it can feel confusing and why it often keeps coming back.

Hi, I’m Alexis Weidland, osteopath, and. Nutritionist at Blossoming Me and Healthy Learning Lounge. And in this video I wanna help you to start making sense of your back pain, so that you can begin to recognize what type of pattern may be involved, and why your symptoms feel the way that they do.

Most lower back pain doesn’t come from just one thing. Instead it usually fits into a combination of patterns. But to make this easier to understand, we can group them into four common types of lower back pain.

Four Common Types of Lower Back Pain

1 – Local Tissue Irritation.

This is where the structures in the lower back itself are involved. This might include:

• joints,
• muscles,
• ligaments,
• discs, or
• even nerves.

What this can feel like. Again, we have a few different variations here.

Disc related symptoms Often has:

➝ pain present with bending or sitting;

➝ stiffness, especially after rest;

➝ discomfort straight after getting up; and

➝ sometimes pain radiates into the buttock or even down into the leg.

Nerve irritation generally has:

➝ sharp shooting pain;

➝ burning or tingling; and

➝ symptoms that also might travel down the leg;

➝ plus there could be possible numbness or weakness.

Facet joint irritation: pain is generally when:

➝ we arch backwards and often it’s one-sided;

➝ it can be worse with standing; and

➝ there’s usually localized discomfort.

Muscle or fascia involvement: usually has a

➝ dull, aching pain: tightness;

➝ fatigue in the muscles; and

➝ it’s worse after holding a posture or position for a prolonged period.

And importantly, these don’t always exist on their own either. You might have a combination of those.

2 – Movement and Load Transfer Patterns.

This is one of the most common and most overlooked contributors. Your lower back doesn’t move on its own. It relies on coordination between the hips, the pelvis, the ribcage, and the spine.

But many people develop patterns such as

• stiff hips,
• reduce ribcage movement,
• shallow breathing and
• uneven movement.

Causing tension and strain through the fascia of our body.

What this often feels like:

➝ your back might feel like it’s constantly tight and doing too much work;

➝ stiffness after sitting;

➝ recurring flareups;

➝ one side often feels tighter than and more active than the other;

➝ pain with certain movements or activities.

In this case, it isn’t just the tissue, it’s about

how the load is being distributed throughout the whole body.

3 – Nervous System and Protective Tension.

This is also a piece that often gets missed. When your body is under stress, physical, or emotional, it shifts into a more protective state. This can lead to increased muscle tension; increased sensitivity to pain; and pain signaling to the brain in the first place; reduced recovery and healing.

This often feels like:

➝ the pain tends to fluctuate;

➝ symptoms are worse with stress or fatigue, or you can’t quite tell why;

➝ there’s constant tightness or a feeling of guarding; and

➝ there’s generally restriction;

➝ plus there’s sensitivity to touch or to movement.

In this situation, the body is trying to protect you, but the protection can become excessive.

4 – Referred or Organ Related Patterns

This is less commonly discussed, but it’s very important. Not all back pain starts with the back. The body has connections between the internal organs and the spine, through its fascia, through its nerves, and through shared pathways.

It can feel like:

➝ deep, hard to localize pain;

➝ pain that isn’t clearly linked to movement or certain positions – it tends to feel a bit different to mechanical type pain;

➝ it may come or go.

➝ Sometimes it’s associated with digestive issues, kidney irritation, menstrual or pelvic organ symptoms.

In these cases, the back may be responding to something that’s happening elsewhere.

Now, here’s the most important part.

Most people don’t fit into just one of these categories.

They generally do experience a combination of patterns. For example, you might have some disc irritation, combined with movement imbalances and fascial strains and pulls, plus your nervous system has increased tension and protectivity.

And if we only focus on the one piece, we miss the bigger picture.

This is the one of the main reasons that back pain can keep coming back because treatment often focuses on the symptom instead of the system behind it. When we start to understand which patterns are involved, how they interact, and what the body is compensating for, we can take a much more effective approach.

In my next video,

I’m going to take you one step further and I’ll show you why these patterns exist in the first place. We’ll look at how the body transfers load, how breathing influences your spine and your lower back and how structures like the diaphragm and the thoraco lumbar fascia and the abdominal fascia play a central role.

Because once you understand that, everything starts to make a lot more sense.

The key thing to remember is

Your back pain is not random.

Your body is responding to something, and when you can start to understand those patterns, you are already one step closer to improving it.

If you found this helpful

Please keep an eye out for the next video, and if you’d like help identifying your own patterns more clearly, it might be worth booking in to see us for your individualized assessment and treatment plan.

So that’s it for today. Did it raise any questions or aha moments? If so, I’d love to hear them. So please put those in the comment section. I love answering questions. I hope you found today useful. And if you know someone who could use this information, please share it. Remember to comment, like and subscribe.

Until next time and in health, bye for now.

Click the Button Below for my RibCage Reset min-course

Interested in further reading?

1. 1. 1. Postural function of Diaphragm altered with Breathing Requirements
      2. Functions of the Thoracolumbar Fascia
      3. The Diaphragm, spinal stabilisation and Lower Back Pain
      4. Altered Diaphragm position & Function with Chronic Lower Back Pain
      5. The Diaphragm is a central conenctor, affecting organs, the nervous system and the musculoskeletal system
      6. The Diaphragm Functions together with the Lumbar Multifidi and Thoraculumbar Fascia

About Blossoming Me

BlossomingMe offers a fully integrated approach to your wellbeing. Located on Sydney’s Upper North Shore. Sarah is our Cranio-sacral and Remedial Massage Therapist and health and lifestyle coach. She can help relieve those problematic knots, tightness and other specific ailments to promote a healthy recovery. These complementary massage therapies can be combined to suit your needs, and include: craniosacral therapy, shiatsu, acupressure, reiki, remedial, swedish, and body-mind-massage. 

Our qualified Osteopath, Alexis, offers a drug free, minimally invasive, “hands on” treatment focusing on the musculoskeletal system with its associated muscles, tendons, ligaments, membranes, bones and joints. Alexis takes a functional approach. This means that she focuses on the way a component (body part, tissue or group of tissues) performs its role, as well as the way the body works, performs and integrates as a whole. Our team can support you to improve your posture and therefore your overall health.