• Persistent or worsening back pain. Back pain often goes away in a few days or weeks but if it is persisting or progressively increasing then its reason to seek medical attention. 
• Back pain associated with progressive numbness, tingling, or weakness. This could be a symptom of pinched nerve, slipper disc or narrowing of the space in the spine (slipped disc) and requires medical attention
• Inability to control your bowels or urination (incontinence) Spinal nerve compression can have an impact on one’s ability to control bladder and bowel function, leaving to incontinence. This is a severe symptom and requires immediate medical attention. 
• Back pain starting after an accident. If your back pain began after a fall, accident or an injury
• Back pain that is worse at night
• Back pain associated with unexplained weight loss. .
• Back pain with Fever. This could be a sign of infection or ongoing inflammation
• Back pain in extremes of ages (too young or too old patients) or in high risk individuals such as those with severe osteoporosis or prolonged use of steroids or drug abuse history

The post Back Pain Which Should Not To Be Ignored appeared first on Dr Amod Blog.

• Narrows blood vessels, reducing the blood flow to the muscles, bones and other body parts
• Impact on brain circuitry
• Impact on immunity and slow healing
• Increased fatigue
• Increase blood pressure

The incidence of chronic low back pain among smokers compared to non-smokers is higher, and smokers experience more severe pain. This is true irrespective of the sex and nature of work (manual laborers Vs white-collar). Some studies have reported former smokers having a higher prevalence of back pain than never smokers and other studies have reported that those who smoked more cigarettes per day had higher prevalence of back pain.

For those with back pain, it is important to know about the link between smoking and back pain as smoking is known to

Impact on Discs

One of the most important factors responsible for increased back pain is the impact of smoking on the discs. The disc is dependent on the surrounding tissues for its nutrition and when we smoke, the pores through which the nutrition goes, start getting blocked, negatively affecting the healing and regenerating capacity of the discs. Nicotine can alter the size of the blood vessels and the ability for the body to adapt, increasing the chances of damage. The flexibility of discs suffers and they can degenerate quickly, leading to early disc problems.

Impact on Bones

Your bones also become weak due to smoking because smoking increases osteoporosis.

Impact on Pain Sensitivity

Another factor due to which the pain can increase is pain sensitivity. When you smoke your pain sensitivity increases which means that the pain which was less troublesome before increases in severity.

Impact on Muscles

So when you smoke, your muscles become weak. Muscle mass, flexibility, and strength decreases and this can become a reason for the pain arising from the muscles

Impact on Tendons & Ligaments

The stability and the strength of ligaments and tendons reduces due to which the instability of the spine can increase.

Other Effects

Besides the above effects, smoking has many other adverse effects such as causing inflammation and impairing immune function affecting the healing capacity of the body.

The post Smoking And Back Pain – What Is The Link? appeared first on Dr Amod Blog.