If you suffer from back pain, you may wonder: at what point should I be concerned and seek treatment? Fortunately, when back pain turns serious, there are ways you can treat it, and one of those ways is through regenerative medicine.
While many people experience the occasional dull lower back pain or tweaked back, a more serious problem could be going on when the pain becomes more frequent, painful and chronic. From numbness and weakness to high fever or loss of bladder function, check out these signs that your back pain requires immediate attention.
But first, let’s explore the difference between acute pain and chronic pain.
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Acute Pain or Chronic Pain?
Acute pain is a short-term pain with an identifiable source, such as when you pull your back while exercising or after making an awkward movement when lifting boxes. This type of injury will usually heal within a few weeks without treatment beyond self-care, allowing you to return to your normal routine fairly quickly.
Chronic pain, on the other hand, is long-term pain. While this type of pain can also be triggered by an injury, there’s usually an underlying condition to blame. More than 72 million people suffer from chronic low back pain in this country. Chronic pain comes with symptoms that are dire enough to impact the quality of your daily life, your overall health, and your mobility for long periods of time. Chronic pain can build up gradually over a period of months, or it can come on suddenly.
Additionally, chronic back pain is often recurrent, meaning it comes and goes over and over again. Chronic back pain is generally more serious than acute pain and should be evaluated by a physician, as the root cause could be a degenerative or slipped disc from an accident or as a result of a condition such as spinal stenosis.
Most times, you can wait for a regular appointment with your doctor to get evaluated. But sometimes, back pain just can’t wait.
Back Pain: An Emergency Situation
You should be seen immediately when your back pain is accompanied by other concerning symptoms, such as:
- Sudden spike in numbness, weakness, discomfort, or pain
- High fever
- Severe stomach pain
- Loss of bladder or bowel function
- Pain resulting from a fall or blow to the back
- Severe pain that does not improve with rest
- Unexplainable weight loss
- Pain that spreads down one or both legs, especially below the knee
After receiving emergency care for the urgent situation, you should then follow that up with a visit to a back specialist who can go over causes, treatments and options for managing your chronic pain.
Contact Michigan Center for Regenerative Medicine to Treat Back Pain
You don’t have to suffer with back pain any longer. We can discuss the many regenerative medicine treatments that may help. Call us at (248) 216-1008 today.