There are two kinds of back and leg pain. One is acute or short term back and leg pain which could last from periods of a few days to a few weeks.
This type of back pain is very common and may affect four out of five adults in the United States. The other type of back and leg pain is chronic, lasting for more than two months.
Chronic back and leg pain may be a symptom of a more serious condition. It is advised that you visit the doctor if you suffer from back pain that lasts longer than the normal two weeks to two months.
Here are some of the more common causes of back and leg pain:
Lumbar Spine Stenosis
This is a degenerative disease of the lumbosacral spine, affecting up to 90 percent of the U.S. population, most of them belonging to the middle aged or elderly age group. The disease is a major cause of morbidity, disability and lost productivity.
In lumbar stenosis, the cauda equina roots, a type of nerve found inside the spine, are entrapped within the dural sac, causing excruciating and incapacitating back and leg pain. This entrapment of the cauda equina roots is a result of progressive hypertrophy of any of the osseocartilaginous and ligamentous elements, soft tissues that surround the spinal canal.
Additionally, the degenerative changes or trauma could rupture or heniate the intervertebral disc, which is composed of a gelatinous, centrally located nucleus pulposes and a peripherally located annulus fibrosus.
Lumbar stenosis mostly affects men and the middle aged to the elderly, although it could also occur in women and younger patients. Back and leg pain is the earliest complaint of this condition, which is often treated with some of the self-care methods available. This results in delay in diagnosis.
Sciatica
Sciatica is a condition affecting the sciatic nerve. Since this nerve travels from the lower back through the buttocks and into the leg, the pain often occurs in any of these affected areas. Back and leg pain as a result of sciatica can be more or less severe and is caused by a herniated lumbar disc.
The degeneration (herniation) of the disc causes it to compress onto one of the contributing roots of the sciatic nerve, causing sharp back and leg pains to shoot up. Often, the pain in the leg, posterior thigh, or foot can be much worse than the accompanying lower back pain. At the onset, the patient usually experiences severe pain in the buttocks which runs all the way down through the legs or foot. In some cases, there is even no accompanying back pain.
Treating back and leg pain resulting from any of the two disorders mentioned will involve treating the disorders themselves. Any of the usual type of treatments available for normal back pains will provide little relief, if at all.
Atlanta Acupuncture for Lower Back Pain
The National Institutes of Health reports that up to 80 percent of the general population in the United States suffers or will suffer from an episode of lower back pain. That means four out of five adults are likely to have lower back pain at some point in life, making it one of the most common neurological ailments, second only to headache.
There are many treatments and remedies available for persons who suffer from this condition. And while there is no definitive treatment, the use of Atlanta acupuncture for lower back pain has experienced a dramatic increase over the past few decades.
A number of placebo-controlled studies have established and validated Atlanta acupuncture for lower back pain as a reliable method for pain relief. In fact, the Annals of Internal Medicine has published a meta-analysis on Atlanta acupuncture for lower back pain showing how among the two dozen previously published studies on back pain treatments, acupuncture is “significantly more effective” than sham acupuncture or no treatment.
ACUPUNCTURE: How it Works
Acupuncture is a significant component of Traditional Chinese Medicine. It has been used to treat a number of illnesses for hundreds of years in China and most Asian nations.
The treatment is based on a theory that the human body is made up of channels or meridians where the “life force” or qi flows through. If these meridians are blocked off because of stress or any number of causes of illness, it would compromise the health of the individual. The goal of acupuncture, therefore, is to unblock the clogged meridians and allow the qi to once more flow freely throughout the body. This is done by sticking needles unto the affected meridians to release the qi.
The Science Behind
In a recent study published in the Clinical Journal of Pain, Dr. Christer Carlsson and his colleague Dr. Bengt Sjlund of the Lund University Hospital in Sweden were able to prove the safety of using Atlanta acupuncture for lower back pain.
Recruiting 50 patients (comprised of 33 women and 17 men) all of whom have been suffering chronic low back pain for a minimum of six months, the scientists randomly assigned one group out of three to undergo sessions of Atlanta acupuncture for lower back pain. The other two groups underwent electroacupuncture and placebo, respectively.
After four sessions plus a follow up treatment two months later, “significant” changes were observed in the group that underwent Atlanta acupuncture for lower back pain. Based on these results, the scientists concluded that “there is now reasonable evidence that acupuncture has a clinically relevant pain-relieving effect on certain forms of chronic pain.”
Several more studies were conducted investigating the effects of Atlanta acupuncture for lower back pain. While the question of efficacy remains widely disputed, a good number of the European medical community are adopting Atlanta acupuncture for lower back pain as a valid treatment method.
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