Back Pain

Whether you have a poorly healed injury or a degenerative condition like osteoarthritis, back problems can be disabling as well as painful. If you have severe or unrelenting back pain, visit Balcones Pain Consultants at their offices in Austin, Cedar Park, or Marble Falls, Texas. The experienced pain experts offer nonsurgical treatments for back pain, including epidural steroid injections, radiofrequency ablation, and the minimally invasive Indirect Decompression System (IDS). Call Balcones Pain Consultants today or book an appointment online for exceptional back pain treatment.

What is back pain?

One of the most common places to develop acute or chronic pain is your back. In fact, back pain is the leading cause of disability in the United States.

Your back consists of a column of vertebrae (bones) held in place by tendons, ligaments, and muscles. In between each pair of vertebrae are spongy discs that absorb shock traveling up your spinal column. Inside the spinal canal, protected by the bones, is your spinal cord, a central hub of nerves connected to your brain.

Back pain could come from damage to any of these structures. One of the chief problems is nerve damage or compression in your spine (radiculopathy) resulting from wear-and-tear or injury.

Back pain might be dull and achy or sharp and stabbing. It makes walking, standing, and sitting hard and could worsen after lying down. Back pain limits your ability to work and lead an active life — even simple movements like bending or twisting can become impossible with back pain.

What’s causing my back pain?

Your back pain could result from an injury like a sprain, strain, or fracture. You can incur these injuries when playing sports, in an auto accident, or during a fall. You can also overstrain your spine if you exceed your current fitness levels or lift a heavy weight without using the correct technique.

Some people have conditions where their spine is an abnormal shape. For example, scoliosis makes the spine curve to the left and/or right. Kyphosis describes an excessively rounded upper back. Rheumatoid arthritis can also distort your spine.

You might be born with these problems, or they can develop in later life — severe kyphosis in older people is often due to vertebral compression fractures from osteoporosis (loss of bone density).

Aging doesn’t just weaken your bones; it can cause deterioration in all of your spinal tissues. Common causes of age-related back pain include:

• Osteoarthritis
• Degenerative disc disease
• Ankylosing spondylitis
• Spondylolisthesis
• Spinal stenosis
• Herniated discs

Herniated discs can result from injury as well as the effects of aging.

How is back pain treated?

At Balcones Pain Consultants, the experienced doctors specialize in interventional treatments for back pain that include:

• Physical therapy
• Medication
• Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and other biologic injections
• Epidural steroid injections
• Facet joint injections
• Nerve blocks
• Indirect Decompression System (IDS)
• Radiofrequency ablation
• Spinal cord stimulation 

Most patients find that they benefit from the least invasive options, but advanced treatments can help when back pain doesn’t respond to other therapies.

To experience long-lasting relief from your back pain, call Balcones Pain Consultants today or schedule a consultation online.