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Back pain and Lower Back Pain
Understanding your lower back anatomy
Bricks and mortar - how the back is built
How well do you know your lower back? On this page you will get to know its make-up, its anatomy, a bit better.
The lumbar spine is an amazing thing. Some people say that lower back pain comes about because the design of the spine is not suited to mans upright posture. I don't believe this is true.
It is hard to see how the design of the lower spine could be improved. With little or no maintenance, the lower back will see us through seventy or more years of daily living. No car or household gadget could do that.
The spine is perfectly designed to do its job. Problems arise when we expect too much of it or when we don't look after it properly.
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So what does the lumbar spine or lower back look like?
Imagine working in an American delicatessen restaurant and having to serve up one of those giant multi-layered sandwiches. You know the kind - they use about eight slices of bread and many different fillings. Keep that picture in mind and it is easier to understand how the bones of the lumbar spine (the bread) and the lumbar discs (the fillings) fit together.
In our giant spinal sandwich we need twenty-four bits of bread. These are the main bones of the spine - called vertebral bones. Some of them, near the base of the lower back, are joined bone to bone and don't need any filling in their part of the sandwich. The fillings between the other ones are bits of flexible and squashy gristle called discs.
Since this is by now a rather tall sandwich, the body has to make some effort to stop it falling over in a heap. It does this by building in extra support using joints, ligaments and muscles. The lumbar spine ligaments are like very tough bits of elastic - the kind of shining gristle you sometimes see attached to cheaper cuts of butcher meat.
Held safely in the middle of all of this is the main nerve of the body - the spinal cord - and from it, like bits of spaghetti, emerge the nerves that supply our arms and legs.
The picture above will have shown you images of how the bones of the lower back are arranged on top of one another with the lumbar discs sitting like cushions in between. You'll read more about how lumbar discs work later but for now it should be helpful to see how it's all arranged.
You will also have seen that the spinal nerves sit quite close to the back of the lumbar disc. They are also close to the facet joint between the two bones. Check out where the lower back muscles are and how they cover the back of the lumbar facet joints.
Does all of this look quite simple? Good - it is simple! Thousands of words and web pages have been written about the anatomy of the back and if you're interested you can read them. But in truth the above is all you need to understand your own back.
Now lets look at some of these bits in just a little bit more detail.
What do lumbar discs do?
The disc sits like a cushion between the bones of the spine - the vertebrae. In most of us it is a tough but flexible piece of gristle. When we are young the lumbar disc is a bit like one of those jelly-fruit sweets you can buy at Christmas. It has a tougher outer shell but a soft, almost liquid centre. By the age of twenty the soft-centre has become dried up and tough. Not all the liquid has gone but the middle of the lumbar disc is much more rubbery than before.
An interesting thing about discs is that they are really quite squashy. It may surprise you to hear that we lose about an inch in height every day as we walk around. This is caused by the weight of our body and gravity squeezing fluid out of our lumbar discs. The good news is that when we lie down to sleep the fluid is allowed to sneak back in and we grow again to our former height. When astronauts go into space they grow by one or two inches since there is no gravity to squeeze their discs.
This squishiness is important when we have a painful lumbar disc because it means that some postures are better for us than others. Sitting too long in a slumped posture is especially bad - but that will be explained further later.
Lumbar discs work as cushions or shock absorbers to help the bones of the lower back carry the weight of the body and the head. They are more elastic than the bones around them and can help make the spine more flexible.
The pages that follow in this site will cover the working of the lower back and the lumbar spine in great detail. You'll discover how the nerves of the back work, how the discs perform their day to day tasks and how the spine muscles look after posture and function.
There are also sections on pain and lower back treatment options including acupuncture for back pain
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Can discs hurt? Disc Related Pain or Discogenic Low Back Pain
You bet that lumbar discs can hurt. Only a few years ago scientists thought that lumbar discs had no nerves within them and if a bit of the body has no nerve supply then it can't be a source of pain. We now know otherwise.
Discs do have a nerve supply. These nerves carry pain signals and special nerve messages that let the brain know if the spine is bent or straight - helping us to maintain good posture. It was our faulty understanding of the way lumbar discs worked that caused so much attention on "slipped discs". Doctors used to think that a disc had to slip before it could cause problems. That's not true and a slipped disc is a rarer condition than was previously thought. Lumbar discs can cause a lot of lower back pain without having slipped anywhere.
You can read more about slipped disc and spinal disc pain elsewhere on this website - use the site search facility if you like. But for now lets turn our attention to the nerves of the spine. Follow the links below:
Page Links for lower back pain pages
Lower back pain
What causes back pain
How the spine nerves work
Facet Joint Pain - Sacroiliac Joint Pain
Back pain, disc pain and disc degeneration
lower back pain and the lumbar facet joints
What is Lower Back Pain
Why is my back sore?
Lower Back Pain Treatment and Referred Pain
First aid treatment measures for a low back pain attack
Manipulation Treatment for Back Pain
Acupuncture treatment for lower back pain
Back Pain Treatment
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