The key to proper treatment is to understand the cause of your pain. Because the cause of back pain often eludes even the best doctors, they will diligently look for the cause to find the best and most effective form of treatment.

The most common causes of back pain are as follows:

Muscle strains are one of the most common causes of general back pain and or low back pain. Patients may not remember the beginning episode that provoked their muscle spasm, but the good news is that most occurrences of back pain from muscle strain totally disappear in a matter of a few weeks.

Back pain can be caused by a herniated disc, which is a ruptured intervertebral disc.

Discogenic is thought of as the most common cause of low back pain. Injury of the ligamentous disc of the spine, short of rupture, is the cause of discogenic pain in the back. A discogram may need to be used to determine if one's pain is discogenic back pain.

In the aging population, spinal stenosis often causes back pain. Arthritis and other physical conditions can worsen with age, causing constriction of the spinal canal. Back pain can result from the spinal canal if it becomes too tight.

In most cases, arthritis causes problems in joints, for example, the knees and fingers. Arthritis can affect all the joints in the body, whether joints of the knees and fingers or the small joints of the spine, which can cause back pain with movement. When there is arthritis of the spine, any movement can cause back pain.

If the adjacent vertebra becomes unstable and starts to "slip", causing back pain, this is a symptom of spondylolisthesis. The most common cause is degenerative change resulting from the loss of the normal stabilizing structures of the spine. Back pain can become a problem if the spine becomes unstable enough.

It is difficult to determine the cause of backaches. The list cited previously is only a handful of the many causes of chronic back ailments. No one should have to suffer from extreme or long term back pain because a competent physician can diagnose and treat the cause.