Tag: Upper Back Pain

How can Upper Back Pain be Helped

Upper back pain may not be as common as lower back pain but it may also induce severe pain and extreme discomfort. It is frequently caused by myofascial pain or muscular irritation and dysfunction on the joint. Degeneration on the upper back discs may occur but this condition is too rarely observed among upper back pain sufferers.

Both the myofascial pain and the joint dysfunction can best be helped with treatments in the forms of:

Active and passive physical therapy and daily exercise

Osteopathic or chiropractic manipulation

Massage therapy or deep massage

Acupuncture

Massage therapy

Injections with a local anesthetic on trigger points

Over the counter medications

Prescription drugs

The back bone is divided into several categories and each are at risk to different factors. As much as lower back pain is a condition that affects the lower portion of the spinal bones (lumbar), the upper back pain is mainly due to irregularities or impairments on the thoracic spine. While the lower spine and the neck are intended to allow us for greater mobility, the thoracic spine is designed to protect the internal organs that the section covers and to help the framework of the body to hold itself in its respective postures.

Because this section of the spinal chord are created for limited movement and more stability, it’s susceptibility to injuries and degeneration is much too less when compared with what the lower back is facing. Additionally, upper back may develop lesser disorders and like herniated spinal disks, degenerative disc disease and spinal stenosis.

Upper back pain may be the resultant of poor posture or extreme trauma. Interestingly enough, the most recent cases documented for upper back pain typically came from people who work continuously in front of computers. Upper back pain often occurs with neck and shoulder pain.

Rarely, thoracic disk disease is the cause for upper back bone. Though this often is the case with lower back pain, the case is the opposite with thoracic back pain since lesser mobility is created with this spinal bone part.

Another less occurring condition responsible for upper back pain is the trauma that may cause the fracture or extreme injuries on the thoracic vertebrae. In this case, there is no room for neglecting the condition. This needs immediate medical assistance via early diagnosis to measure the damage incurred and to formulate the ideal treatment plan.

Complications Concerning Middle Back Pain

Many symptoms of thoracic pain or middle back pain are rare and hardly distinguishable when compared with the more common types of back pain. Usually, middle back pain may be closely related to neck pain (or cervical neck pain) and chest pain. This is why signs of this condition may be misinterpreted as symptoms of other related ailments.

The reason why people have differing opinions on middle back pain is because most are only considered as referred pains. The pain that the sufferer feels is much different in location than that of the actual location. You and your doctor may never find the real cause of middle back pain if you look for them in the middle back. The same is true with lower back pain and upper back pain.

Contrary to what is popularly believed, middle back pain is simpler than what we were made to believe. It may be stimulated by the trigger points in the muscles at the back. These trigger points include erector spinae, infraspinatus, latissimus dorsi and multifidi, rhomboids, serratus posterior inferior, serratus posterior superior, subscapularis, and trapezius.

That long list of Latin terms may have complicated things for you but it will get even more complicated when the actual location of pain is displaced in the upper back and especially in the middle back. The following are few of the complications that we are to talk about:

The trigger points located at the scalene muscles that cover the front and the back of the neck may stimulate a continuing pain between the blades of your shoulders in the upper back. This fact is rarely known among people experiencing the actual pain. As it is, the pain may be a referred pain causing people to frequently misinterpret the pain in the shoulder blades as pain that occurs in other locations.

Often, there is a trigger point in the serratus anterior located under your arm that may cause frequent middle back pain. This pain may be felt at the tip of the shoulder blades. This condition is so subtle that even an expert on trigger points may overlook the symptoms.

There are also trigger points at the rectus abdominus or the stomach that may cause the excruciating middle back pain. This is often undiagnosable and even the best therapists may not be able to determine this condition. In this form of middle back pain, no therapy may be applied.

You see, the actual pain may be complex enough to make things hard both for the sufferer and the physician. If the condition is triggered on some other place undefined, it may even be harder to diagnose and treat.

Causes of Upper Back Pain

It is uncommon to hear someone complaining of upper back pain as compared for the numberless people who seek medical help due to excruciating lower back pain. This may be due to the fact that the lower back is much more susceptible to injuries and muscle strain rather than the more protected upper back. However, this still does not negate the fact that every year millions of patients are diagnosed of upper back pain.

What causes upper back pain is still an argument until these days. Not that the medical community is divided into what should be believed in but because there are too many and complicated reasons underlying a simple upper back pain. Often the physician finds no abnormalities concerning anatomy so he deems the pain only as psychological. As such diagnosis is not thoroughly taken and neither the cause nor the symptoms are identified.

The pain is usually felt on the upper back between the shoulder blades. Though the pain felt in this location, the actual anatomical cause may probably be situated somewhere else. Or they may be no actual anatomical cause only defaults on the trigger points. The trigger points re normally located nearest to the muscles covering the bones. This is why patients don’t normally recognize the exact sites of pain and consequently feel them on another site. This case is normal and is known as referred pain.

The most common cause of upper back pain is postural problems. The upper body needs to be properly associated with the lower section of the body. And the components of the upper body themselves must have precise coordination. This can be achieved by placing the parts on their normal positions using proper postures. With this, not only the overall posture is severely affected but also the state of each component, especially the framework.

With improper posture often arises the problem of herniated or degenerated discs. Some may also experience displaced discs. With this, pressure may be put on the nerve roots since bulging may occur. This will result to agonizing pain and may last for a number of months.

The majority of people undergoing pain in the upper back due to displaced discs are women and office workers. For obvious reasons, females are more susceptible to this cause as compared with the male population, recent studies support the statistics that the number of upper back pin causes is more prevalent in females in as much as four times than that of male.

The causes of upper back pain vary from person to person and sometimes even gender to gender. However, the underlying truth still remains to be the same- the actual cause or causes are often not diagnosed properly due to the nature of the ailment itself.