What Causes Lower Back Pain While Standing

Muscle Fatigue Or Soreness

Sometimes, your lower back pain is caused from just working your muscles too hard. When you stand upright, you may not realize it, but your spinal erectors and core are working hard to keep you stable and balanced. If you are overweight, this pain and inflammation in your lower back will be exacerbated.

So, if you spend a day walking or standing in lines, there is a good chance your pain is nothing more than just overuse. Luckily, this type of pain will go away within a couple days in most cases. You can speed up the recovery with rest, ice or heat, anti-inflammatories, and lower back stretches for pain relief. If your pain lasts more than a week or two, it is likely you are struggling with something more than just fatigue or soreness.

Seeking The Help Of A Doctor

Some people experience lower back pain after standing for a few minutes. This may indicate a spinal medical condition may have developed. Fortunately, lower back pain due to excessive standing is usually treatable by following some basic guidelines. However, if the self-care options do not help and the pain persists for more than a few weeks or spreads further down the legs, it is important to see a doctor. Standing for long periods of time may be aggravating an undiagnosed medical issue, like a bulging disk or osteoporosis.

Tips To Relieve Lower Back Pain From Sitting All Day

If your back hurts when sitting all day, you might also find it difficult to walk, get out of bed, bend over, or stand up from a chair. To alleviate pain or at least prevent further injury, here are seven tips to help you do things easier.

In a study led by Scottish and Canadian researchers, it was discovered that sitting up straight is not the most desirable position for desk workers. The researchers suggested that sitting at a specific angleis the best for backs.

Why? Naturally, our spine is supposed to be S-shaped when viewed laterally.

The S-like curvature contributes to the flexibility of the spine, as well as even distribution of weight.

The cervical region or the neck area, and the lower back, , should be curved slightly inward.

On the other hand, the thoracic and sacral has a gentle outward curve.

Back support, especially lumbar support, aids in maintaining the natural curvature of the spine or vertebrae. Previously, we have discussed that a wrong sitting position contributes to the progression of lower back pain.

So, if you are working in the office sitting on your chair all day long, consider getting the best chair lumbar support for your office chair.

A chair that supports the lumbar region of the back helps maintain its natural curve and prevents unnecessary postural stress.

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Bad Habits That Cause Lower Back Pain

The most common reason for lower back pain is postural stress, so your everyday routine might be causing you discomfort. Here are some habits that can contribute to postural stress and increase your risk of back pain:

Low Back Pain When Standing

At times you can feel pain from simply walking or standing for long periods. You may believe you are doing everything correctly. Still, the discomfort is there as a daily reminder that something is not quite right.

What Causes Lower Back Pain while Standing?The lower back is made up of vertebral bones that are assembled to support the body in an upright position. A jelly-filled disk is located between each of these bones to cushion them and offer stability. Also located on each side of these back bones are joints called facet joints. These joints allow your back to be flexible when you have to twist or bend down.If the disk and facet joints become inflamed, they may produce pain in the lower back when standing.

Does Standing for Long Periods of Time Cause Pain in the Lower Back?As we age, the disks and facet joints may begin to deteriorate. This often produces lower back pain when standing during normal daily activity. When you are standing, the spine has a curvature, which may intensify contact between the facet joints. When there is inflammation in these joints, standing for long periods of time may worsen the inflammation and cause lower back pain.

Potential Causes

How Can I Stand with Back Pain?Here are some tips to try if you are one of the people who have more pain in standing:

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When Should I See A Doctor

When you experience lower back pain when standing or walking, the causes may be more difficult to pin point. If you know you stay hunched over at your desk for several hours, its easy to place blame on your poor posture. But if you cannot trace your pain to something simple like that, it may be because the cause is mechanical.

You may feel the pain symptoms of degenerative disease or spinal stenosis without knowing that is what is going on. A trained, medical professional will be able to evaluate your symptoms and your medical history to identify these as potential causes.

If you are experiencing pain for longer than three months you should reach out to a skilled medical professional who will be able to better determine the cause of your pain. When pain symptoms last longer than 12 weeks, you pain becomes classified as chronic, and may even escalate in nature.

A lower back pain specialist will review the duration of your lower back pain and diagnose the cause of your symptoms. They will verify your pain history, associated pain symptoms, and review your medical history to better ascertain which treatment method would be most beneficial. A skilled pain management provider will recommend certain tests like MRIs and CT scans to determine if the source of your pain is a mechanical failure of the spinal column or not.

You dont need to live with chronic lower back pain. Let us help you begin your journey to enhancing the quality of your life.

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Upper Back Pain When Sitting

Many people experience pain in their necks and upper backs as a result of craning forward while sitting to look at a computer monitor or phone display. Although its tempting to sprawl out and watch television for hours, this can also easily throw your back out of alignment.

That uncomfortable feeling of stiffness when you finally do move or stand up is telling you something.

Better posture makes a difference.

Its likely your parents or teachers cautioned you to sit up straight when you were a child, and with good reason.

Sitting in one position too long isnt healthy. Doing it with your back rounded forward, slumped to one side, or leaning too far back can put stress on parts of your spine for an extended period. This can lead to pain, as well as other issues.

To help you sit straighter, position your body along an imaginary straight line extending the length of your back, out of your head, and up to the ceiling. Keep your shoulders level and dont let your pelvis rotate forward. Doing so causes a curve in your lower back.

If you sit up perfectly straight, youll feel the small of your back stretch and lengthen.

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What Does It Mean If Lower Back Pain Is Shooting Into Legs

Lower back pain can radiate to other parts of the body: up or down from its place of origin. Sometimes lower back pain can be on one side of the back, which is also normal.

If the pain is shooting from the lower back into one or both legs, it could be sciatica , but its not always the case. There are many parts in the lower back that may cause the pain to radiate into the legs, such as facet joints, sacroiliac joints, muscles or inflammation of the bursa.

What You Can Do Right Away For The Short Term

To relieve this discomfort, you can sit down on a chair or try lying down. If you must remain standing, you can elevate one leg on a low stool or with some raised foot support. This will help to reduce your pelvic tilt and allow it to come back towards neutral.

If you have these symptoms not only when you are standing, but also upon standing, then your pelvic tilt may have become too anterior.

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Common Causes Of Chronic Lower Back Pain

“Chronic lower back pain is less likely to be caused by injury to your muscles and ligaments and more likely to be due to issues with the lumbar disks, nerves, joints or vertebrae,” says Dr. Palmer. “There are several potential causes of chronic pain in the lower back.”

In general, osteoarthritis and degenerative disk disease are the underlying cause of many types of chronic lower back pain. However, lower back pain can also be caused by accident-related trauma and acute stress.

Treatments For Back Pain From A Specialist

A GP, specialist or physiotherapist may recommend extra treatments if they do not think your pain will improve with self-help measures alone.

These may include:

• group exercise classes where youre taught exercises to strengthen your muscles and improve your posture
• manual therapy treatments, such as manipulating the spine and massage, which are usually done by a physiotherapist, chiropractor or osteopath
• psychological support, such as cognitive behavioural therapy , which can be a useful part of treatment if youre struggling to cope with pain

Some people choose to see a therapist for manual therapy without seeing a GP first. If you want to do this, youll usually need to pay for private treatment.

Surgery is generally only considered in the small number of cases where back pain is caused by a specific medical condition.

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When To Get Help For Low Back Pain

Pain from ruptured discs and arthritis doesn’t have to flatten you. There are a variety of ways to ease lower back pain discomfort and reduce disability, often without drugs.

Spinal problems are the price we pay for walking upright. Wear and tear on our backbones and the constant pull of gravity on our vertebrae take their toll over time. Nearly every adult has had a stiff or sore back at some time.

Sciatica is a term you’ve probably heard people use for pain in the lower back, radiating to the buttocks and down one or both legs. “When patients tell me they have sciatica, they could have one of two conditionsa leaking disc or spinal stenosis ,” says Dr. Steven Atlas, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. These conditions in turn can put pressure on the sciatic nerve, which emerges from the lumbar spine, separates just above the buttocks, and runs down each leg.

Lower Back Pain When Standing: Seeking Help

If youve got constant lower back pain when standing it is likely all you think about. But relief is usually only a phone call away.

If the injury occurred while you are on the job, that treatment is likely covered by your employers Workers Compensation plan. However, its important to find an experienced workers comp doctor near you to get the best help possible before more damage is done.

NEW: Telemedicine appointments are now available in the safety and comfort of your home.

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What Are The Most Common Causes Of Lower Back Pain When Standing

As we mentioned earlier, you can look for other symptoms you are experiencing to hammer down exactly what condition you are dealing with.

Oftentimes, you wont just feel lower back pain in general, there will be other signs you can look for to get a better idea of what youre dealing with.

Well start with the least serious conditions and work our way up to conditions that warrant a doctor or hospital visit.

Causes Of Lower Back Pain When Standing

People may complain a lot about their body aches, especially if they have been sitting for a long time. However, lower back pain when standing, lying down on the bed, and even walking can trigger the problem. Why does this happen? Anyone can experience muscle problems, no matter what their habits and activities are. Hence, wise medical advice for patients with facet joints and low back pain is to seek medical treatment. Also, you can soothe your backache by going to a trusted medical spa that focuses on pain relief. Physical therapy may be a priority for people who wants to avoid intrusive procedures such as surgery.

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When Should I Call My Healthcare Provider

• Can’t stand or walk
• Temperature over 101.0°F
• Chills
• Frequent, painful, or bloody urination
• Severe belly pain
• Pain or numbness in your leg
• Pain in a new area of your back
• The pain isnt decreasing after more than a week

• Pain radiating down the leg.
• Pain that is accompanied by fever or chills, leg weakness, or loss of control of the bladder or bowels.

What Are The Treatments For Lower Back Pain

Lower back pain usually gets better with rest, ice and over-the-counter pain relievers. After a few days of rest, you can start to get back to your normal activities. Staying active increases blood flow to the area and helps you heal.

Other treatments for lower back pain depend on the cause. They include:

• Medications: Your provider may recommend nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or prescription drugs to relieve pain. Other medications relax muscles and prevent back spasms.
• Physical therapy : PT can strengthen muscles so they can support your spine. PT also improves flexibility and helps you avoid another injury.
• Hands-on manipulation: Several hands-on treatments can relax tight muscles, reduce pain and improve posture and alignment. Depending on the cause of pain, you may need osteopathic manipulation or chiropractic adjustments. Massage therapy can also help with back pain relief and restore function.
• Injections: Your provider uses a needle to inject medication into the area thats causing pain. Steroid injections relieve pain and reduce inflammation.
• Surgery: Some injuries and conditions need surgical repair. There are several types of surgery for low back pain, including many minimally invasive techniques.

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Back Pain When Standing Too Long Is Extremely Common In People Age 40+

Back pain when standing is the #1 most common problem that I see in my office, particularly among people over 40 years of age.

Why is back pain when standing so common in people over 40 years old?

As you age, the discs in your lower back start to lose fluid and become smaller. Incidentally, this is why people tend to shrink a few inches as they age.

As the discs in your lower back lose height, the vertebrae get closer together. As a result, the facet joints in the back start to compress against one another.

As you can see from the picture above, when you bend your back forward, the space between the facet joints gets wider. As you bend backwards , the facet join which can make your back hurt from standing a long time.

Additionally, the spaces between the vertebrae where the nerve roots to your legs come out get narrower. This is sometimes called spinal stenosis.

When this narrowing happens it can cause sciatica . Sciatica can occur either with our without back pain when standing or walking.

In fact, most people can deal with a little bit of back pain, but when they start to have leg pain or sciatica, that’s when they get worried and seek out treatment.

The ironic part is, if they’d gotten the problem taken care of when they first started having back pain, the pain probably wouldn’t have gone into their legs in the first place.

Reasons For Lower Back Pain While Standing Up

There are a lot of reasons for lower back pain to occur.

But if lower back pain occurs when standing up, its probably due to muscle strain.

Standing up will put immense pressure on the spine and the joints, which leads to muscle tightening and spasms.

Causes of lower back pain:

Muscle strains: this happens when lifting something heavy using poor body mechanics this can happen in any part of your muscle but is common to your lower back.

Overweight: Excess weight can put extra stress on your joints and spine extra weight will pull the pelvis forward, which results in strain to the lower back and leads to lower back pain.

Poor posture: maintaining a good posture is very important sitting, standing, or walking in a bad posture weakens the tissue on your lower back and pushes the muscles, joints, and discs to extreme limits on your back, causing lower back pain.

Degenerative disc disease: this condition occurs while you age and happens when one or more discs between the spinal columns in the vertebrae lose their strength or break down. Leading to pain.

Your day to day actions can cause lower back pain, and some are individual are prone to this condition, such as:

• People who spend their day Sitting for more extended periods of time
• Heavy lifting workers

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Failed Back Surgery Syndrome

Failed Back Surgery Syndrome also called failed back is a clinical condition in which patients who have undergone low back surgery continue to have pain and dysfunction. Said another way the surgery that was intended to reduce pain and increase function FAILED. That is right, the surgery failed. You had the surgery, struggled with the pain postoperatively, diligently participated in physical therapy and yet the pain and limitation are still there. Unfortunately, this occurs frequently. Estimates range from 20-40% of patients who undergo low back surgery will develop Failed Back Surgery Syndrome. Pain is the most common symptom of Failed Back Surgery Syndrome