Lower Right Back Pain From Male
Pain in the lower right side of the back may stem from conditions that are specific to males. Testicular Torsion occurs when a male patients testicle rotates inside the scrotum, which twists the spermatic cord. This occurrence can potentially limit or block blood flow to the testicles. In addition to mild to severe pain in the lower right back, testicular torsion can result in irreversible damage.
Besides lower right back pain, patients should look out for symptoms ranging from severe and unexpected pain in the testicle or groin, swelling of the scrotum, nausea, vomiting, and blood in semen. Patients can achieve relief from painful symptoms by undergoing surgical procedures to untwist the spermatic cord, or in more critical cases remove the testicle.
Low Back Pain Fact Sheet
If you have had lower back pain, you are not alone. Back pain is one of most common reasons people see a doctor or miss days at work. Even school-age children can have back pain.
Back pain can range in intensity from a dull, constant ache to a sudden, sharp or shooting pain. It can begin suddenly as a result of an accident or by lifting something heavy, or it can develop over time as we age. Getting too little exercise followed by a strenuous workout also can cause back pain.
There are two types of back pain:
- Acute, or short-term back pain lasts a few days to a few weeks. Most low back pain is acute. It tends to resolve on its own within a few days with self-care and there is no residual loss of function. In some cases a few months are required for the symptoms to disappear.
- Chronic back pain is defined as pain that continues for 12 weeks or longer, even after an initial injury or underlying cause of acute low back pain has been treated. About 20 percent of people affected by acute low back pain develop chronic low back pain with persistent symptoms at one year. Even if pain persists, it does not always mean there is a medically serious underlying cause or one that can be easily identified and treated. In some cases, treatment successfully relieves chronic low back pain, but in other cases pain continues despite medical and surgical treatment.
Lower Back And Stomach Pain: Possible Causes And Treatments
Jenny Hills, Nutritionist and Medical Writer Health
Lower back and stomach pain is an unpleasant and worrying experience for any person. Because there are a number of organs in the abdominal and lower back area, there are many different reasons for having pain there. Pain in the stomach and lower back can be caused by constipation, stones in the kidney or gallbladder, or a cyst. However, sometimes the pain could be a sign of a more serious condition like appendicitis or even a heart attack.
Lower back and abdominal pain should never be ignored. Some home remedies can help you find relief from some of the symptoms of lower abdomen and back pain. However, if your symptoms last for more than a few days, or you experience intense or severe pain in your stomach and back, you should visit your doctor for a checkup. This is especially true if the pain is accompanied by nausea, vomiting, severe cramps, or pains in your chest.
Lets look at the different reasons why you can experience lower back and stomach pain. This will help you find the root cause of your pain and discomfort and discover if there are any natural home remedies to give you relief.
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Can I Prevent Lower Back Pain
You cant prevent lower back pain that results from disease or structural problems in the spine. But you can avoid injuries that cause back pain.
To reduce your risk of a back injury, you should:
- Maintain a healthy weight: Excess weight puts pressure on vertebrae and disks.
- Strengthen your abdominal muscles: Pilates and other exercise programs strengthen core muscles that support the spine.
- Lift the right way: To avoid injuries, lift with your legs . Hold heavy items close to your body. Try not to twist your torso while youre lifting.
What Causes Lower Back Pain
Many injuries, conditions and diseases can cause lower back pain. They include:
- Strains and sprains: Back strains and sprains are the most common cause of back pain. You can injure muscles, tendons or ligaments by lifting something too heavy or not lifting safely. Some people strain their back by sneezing, coughing, twisting or bending over.
- Fractures: The bones in the spine can break during an accident, like a car crash or a fall. Certain conditions increase the risk of fractures.
- Disk problems: Disks cushion the vertebrae . Disks can bulge from their position in the spine and press on a nerve. They can also tear . With age, disks can get flatter and offer less protection .
- Structural problems: A condition called spinal stenosis happens when the spinal column is too narrow for the spinal cord. Something pinching the spinal cord can cause severe sciatic nerve pain and lower back pain. Scoliosis can lead to pain, stiffness and difficulty moving.
- Arthritis: Osteoarthritis is the most common type of arthritis to cause lower back pain. Ankylosing spondylitis causes lower back pain, inflammation and stiffness in the spine.
- Disease:Spine tumors, infections and several types of cancer can cause back pain. Other conditions can cause back pain, too. These include kidney stones and abdominal aortic aneurysm.
- Spondylolisthesis: This condition causes the vertebrae in the spine to slip out of place. Spondylolisthesis leads to low back pain and often leg pain as well.
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What Home Remedies For Lower Back Pain Actually Work
Unless youve had a major injury, such as a fall or car accident, you probably dont need to rush to the doctor for back pain. You may want to try these simple self-care strategies first.
Avoid bed rest. When lower back pain strikes, people often think complete rest will relieve back pain. However, a review of many clinical studies found that patients who retreated to bed actually experienced more pain and recovered more slowly than patients who stayed fairly active
Use ice and/or heat. Many people find that using ice or cold packs for periods of up to 20 minutes at a time helps reduce pain and swelling. Always wrap ice or a cold pack in a thin towel before putting it on your body so you dont injure your skin. You may also find that heat, such as a heating pad or warm bath, eases pain. Ice is recommended in the first 48 hours after injury then you can try a combo of ice and heat.
Try over-the-counter remedies. Short-term use of OTC pain relievers, such as the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs ibuprofen and naproxen, may ease your lower back pain. Also consider OTC creams, gels, patches, or sprays applied to the skin. They stimulate the nerves in the skin to provide feelings of warmth or cold in order to dull the sensation of pain.
Types Of Lower Back Pain
When considering your lower back pain, think about whether you feel it across your lower back like a band, or whether you feel the pain more intensely on one side versus the other, says Gharibo. If its band-like, its more likely to relate to a disc in your spinal cord.
Having more pain on the left or right side typically signals a muscle sprain or strain, or an issue with a one-sided structure like the hip joint or sacroiliac joint , Dr. Gharibo explains. However, these issues can affect all areas of the back, from the middle to the sides, so its theres no easy diagnosis.
Lower back pain can be acute, lasting a few days to a few weeks, or chronic, which means it lasts longer than 12 weeks, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
Inflammation causes low back pain, and it tends to be intermittent at first, Dr. Gharibo explains. For example, you might feel your lower back ache in the mornings initially, and then it becomes more significant and sometimes seasonal, showing up more often during cold or damp weather. Eventually, this pain can become consistent. You want to address the pain before it becomes consistent.
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Second And Third Trimester
There are several things that can lead to back pain in your second and third trimesters. As your uterus grows to accommodate your growing baby, your gait and posture can change, causing low backaches and pain. Depending on the location of your baby and your gait, the pain may be localized to the right side.
Round ligaments are another possible cause of pain. Round ligaments are fibrous connective tissue that help support the uterus. Pregnancy causes these ligaments to stretch.
As the ligaments stretch, nerve fibers, most commonly on the right side of the body, are pulled, causing periodic sharp, stabbing pains.
Urinary tract infections may also cause pain in the lower right side of your back. Because of bladder compression, 4 to 5 percent of women develop a UTI during pregnancy.
See your doctor if youre pregnant and experiencing any symptoms of a UTI, including:
- burning urination
- abdominal discomfort
- cloudy urine
An untreated UTI in a pregnant woman can lead to a kidney infection, which can seriously affect both mom and baby.
Arthritis Of The Lower Right Back
Pain in your lower right back could be caused by arthritis that is causing inflammation in your sacroiliac joints or pelvic bone.
Ankylosing spondylitis is an arthritic condition that causes low back pain on one or the other side of your back. Over time, vertebrae in the spine fuse together and this creates tension and pain in your lower back. Doctors from the Mayo Clinic say that low back pain caused by ankylosing spondylitis is often felt after periods of inactivity.9
Lumbar spinal stenosis is another arthritic condition that causes chronic cramping pains in the lower back. Dr. Jason Eck on eMedicneHealth says that other symptoms of lumbar spinal stenosis are sharp pains when walking as well as tingling and possibly numbness in the legs.10
Physical therapy can help relieve the chronic pain that arthritis causes in the lower back. This can also help reduce low back pain while you are sleeping and help you get a better nights sleep.
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Chronic Back Pain: Long
Chronic back pain, on the other hand, can be serious. Chronic pain is serious because the symptoms are strong enough to impact your health, mobility and quality of life for an extended period of time.
While chronic back pain can come on suddenly, it usually builds gradually and lasts more than six weeks. Chronic back pain can also be recurrent, meaning itll go away at times but regularly come back.
What causes chronic back pain? Chronic pain can be triggered by a new injury, but underlying conditions are usually the real cause. Muscle deconditioning is one of the most common contributors.
Stomach And Back Pain At The Same Time
For most of us, its not uncommon to have an occasional stomachache or acute back pain. But what does it mean if both are happening at the same time? This could be a coincidence, but it may also be concerning to notice two disconnected symptoms. The combination of pains may make daily activities difficult or be distracting. If the pain reaches this level, it may be a good idea to visit an Atlanta MRI center to rule out any serious conditions that could cause both problems at the same time.
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Is Lower Right Back Pain Serious
Lower right back pain can vary in severity. You will probably have the best idea of your pain level and when you should see a physician.
- Not serious: Mild pain may come on fairly suddenly after exercise and responds to rest and over-the-counter pain relievers.
- Moderately serious: In some cases, an injury that at first seems minor can become worse over time. Back injuries can easily become chronic if not treated quickly.
- Serious: If your back pain interferes with your normal activities and is becoming severe, you should see a physician as soon as possible.
The Right Kidney And Ureter Pain
The right kidney and right ureter condition manifest with right loin pain. The right loin pain commonly spreads to the right mid-back.
Causes:
- Infections of the kidney and urinary tract.
- Kidney inflammation.
- Rarely, kidney tumors.
Symptoms :
- Right loin pain: the loin is the area between your ribs and hip. It is the typical site of right kidney and ureter pain.
- The pain can spread to the mid-back at the right side. Also, ureteric pain spreads to the right groin.
- Sudden onset: Food or movement DOESNT trigger renal colics.
- Intense colic that lasts for minutes to few hours.
- Sudden offset: the pain is relieved entirely after the attack. It tends to recure again.
- Movement doesnt decrease either increase the intensity of pain.
- It is associated with intense nausea. Vomiting also occurs with severe pain.
- Change in urine color .
The causes listed below are either rare or rarely spreads to the mid-back at the right.
- Liver: liver inflammation , liver abscesses, or liver cancer.
- Cancers: liver cancer, kidney cancer, bone cancers, lung cancers, pleural cancer , colorectal cancer, abdominal lymphoma, and others.
- Painful skin lesions: painful skin lesion in the mid-back at the right side can cause pain. Also, a lipoma can cause pain when it is large enough.
- Colon pain: localized gas or colon diseases in the right colon can cause pain that spreads to the right mid-backfor example, trapped gas, irritable bowel syndrome, IBD, and colorectal cancer.
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Diagnosing Lower Back Pain
To diagnose lower back pain, a doctor will first do a physical exam. Theyll look at how well you move and if your back has any visible issues.
Then theyll take a medical history. This will cover your symptoms, any recent injuries, previous back issues, and the severity of your pain.
A physical exam and medical history are often enough for a doctor to determine the cause of your pain. However, they may also need to do an imaging test. Potential tests include:
- X-ray, which can find broken or misaligned bones.
- CT scan, which shows soft tissues such as the discs between vertebrae and potential tumors
- myelogram, which uses dye to enhance the contrast in a CT scan or X-ray to help a doctor identify nerve or spinal cord compression
Complementary And Alternative Techniques Include:
- Acupuncture is moderately effective for chronic low back pain. It involves inserting thin needles into precise points throughout the body and stimulating them , which may cause the body to release naturally occurring painkilling chemicals such as endorphins, serotonin, and acetylcholine.
- Behavioral approaches include:
- Biofeedback involves attaching electrodes to the skin and using an electromyography machine that allows people to become aware of and control their breathing, muscle tension, heart rate, and skin temperature people regulate their response to pain by using relaxation techniques
- Cognitive therapy involves using relaxation and coping techniques to ease back pain
Spinal injections include:Trigger point injections can relax knotted muscles that may contribute to back pain. An injection or series of injections of a local anesthetic and often a corticosteroid drug into the trigger point can lessen or relieve pain.
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What Is Radiating Pain
Radiating pain is pain that “radiates” from one area of the body to other areas of the body. When pain in one area of the body causes pain in other areas, this is known as “referred pain.” In fact, radiating lower back and hip pain can cause pain in all kinds of places near these areas like
- Thigh muscle pain
- Pain back of the knee
- Knee pain at night
- Pain in the upper thigh
- Numbing of nerves in leg
- Hip and groin pain
- Pain in the back of leg behind the knee
- Pain in one side side
- Pain in the calf
- Pain in back of the knee
- Hip and groin pain
- Sharp pain in the toes
- Lower calf pain
Note your symptoms from the list above and use these to learn your diagnosis with our helpful descriptions of symptoms, possible causes, and when you should get to a doctor or emergency room to know how to treat your injury.
Tips To Relieve The Pain
- Stay active and continue your daily routines. Resting is likely to make your pain worse.
- Apply heat or ice for about twenty minutes frequently throughout the day to ease your pain and any inflammation.
- Try exercises for back pain and activities including walking, swimming, yoga and Pilates.
- Take over-the-counter pain relief such as ibuprofen.
- Stretch tight muscles for a few minutes every day.
- Keep good posture as this will ease the pressure on your lower back.
- Maintain a healthy weight to ensure an optimal load on your lower back.
- Ensure you lift safely by bending with your knees to a squat position and holding the load close to your chest.
- Drink plenty of water every day and limit your intake of animal protein and salt to reduce your risk of kidney stones.
- Wipe from front to back when going to the toilet to prevent infection from bacteria in your colon passing to your urinary tract.
- Give up smoking as the nicotine in tobacco can weaken your spinal bones and remove nutrients from your discs that may lead to spine problems.
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