Aching Across My Lower Back Back.

Band-like pain across the lower back is very common and can be particularly troublesome if you have degenerated discs in the lower back. It is ok sometimes to feel pain in this area if you’ve done something out of the ordinary – for example doing some gardening for an extended period of time. Usually this occurs when you’ve just done too much.

The discs that are most commonly injured in the back are the L4-5 and L5-S1 – right at the bottom of the lumbar spine as we show you in the video. Usually this band-like pain will be a problem around the area of where the belt would sit. Build up of inflammation can be a problem as it builds in an enclosed area, usually at the space at the back of the disc where the nerves travel through. We often don’t understand this is going on because we can’t see what’s going on in the inside of the body rather than on the outside.

On the outside, this build-up of inflammation can occur in the case of bed sores, where if you’ve been lying down for an extended period of time and not moving around the consistent pressure causes sores on the body.

If you’ve got degenerative change in the body, you’ll know this if in an x-ray or MRI report you may have a diagnosis of degenerative disc disease, arthritis, spondylosis, spondyloarthrosis, there will likely be less space in between the vertebra and less space at the back of the disc for those nerves to travel through.

As this inflammation is getting out of control, we would recommend using ice to help reduce that. Using an ice-pack for 5 minutes at a time, multiple times throughout the day should help. Learning to bend properly from the hips and maintaining the natural lordosis in your spine will also be helpful to ensure you’re not putting your own recovery backwards through poor habits.