Your back pain may not be due to reasons explained by an MRI, which may well point you towards unnecessary surgical procedures. Current studies show most individuals will have MRI findings of disc degeneration, height loss, or bulging disc. More than 50% of asymptomatic individuals 30-39 years of age and 90% of individuals 60 years of age or older have signs of disc degeneration, height loss, or bulging discs. What does this mean for you? It is possible your MRI findings are the reason for your pain but a lot of the time it isn’t. Low back pain isn’t always because of these “abnormalities” and will not effect the treatment you are receiving at physiotherapy. Physiotherapists are trained to help you with your low back pain using manual therapy and providing you with an exercise program to manage your low back pain. So before you consider surgery, try physiotherapy first.

Lindsay Stevenson
www.prairietrailphysio.ca