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When Back Pain Gets Too Serious and Seeing Your Doctor

By: Todd Brackett

Going to the Doctor

Your back pain should improve with the home treatments written about on our website. While it can take up to 3 weeks for your back pain to completely disappear, you should start noticing improvement within the first 3 days. If you do not notice any improvement within 3 days of starting your home treatment program, you need to see your doctor.

It is rare, but pain in the back can mean a more serious health problem. Go to the hospital if your back pain: is constant or intense, especially when lying down or at night, travels down your legs, causes a tingling sensation in one or both of your legs, causes bladder problems, is creating a throbbing feeling in your abdomen, follows a hit to your back area, or is accompanied by a sudden loss of weight.

You should also see your doctor if you are over 50 and have a history of steroid use, drug or alcohol abuse, or cancer.

Assessing Your Back Pain

Testing isn't usually required to determine your cause of back pain. If you do go to your doctor with back pain, she will run a few diagnostic tests that record your ability to walk, stand, sit, and if you can lift your legs. Your doctor may also test your reflexes. These assessments help determine where the pain is, what degree of motion you have without pain and whether you have muscle spasms. 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 your physician suspects an infection or another, more serious cause, he will order one or more of these 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 allow your doctor to determine the alignment of your bones and if any are broken. X-rays will not directly show problems with your muscles, fibrous tissues, disks, or nerves.

Nerve studies (electromyography, or EMG). This nerve study will allow your doctor to determine if you are suffering from spinal stenosis (narrowing of your spinal canal), or nerve compression caused by herniated disks.

Bone scan. In very rare cases, a bone scan is used to look for compression fractures caused by osteoporosis. This scan is also used to spot bone tumors. 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.HealthArticleBank.com

Todd Brackett is a back pain relief guru and is a writer on back pain relief treatments. 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 Relief From Back Pain ,which is the better way to get back pain relief.

 

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