We have all suffered back pain at some point in our lives, it can be really painful and ruin our productivity due to not being able to go out or stay active. However, not all back pain is dangerous. In most instances when there is back pain, it’s usually a minor injury that the medical staff has nothing to do about. But when is it a good time to worry about low back pain to the point that you seek medical emergency.
Should you call the ER?
It’s very easy to fall into the idea that you need to call the ER because you have low back pain especially when you experience it for the first time. However, chances are you don’t need to go to the ER yet unless you experience these symptoms:
- Waking up at night for no reason
- Experiencing stomach pain
- Pain when going to the bathroom
- Numbness
- You’re losing weight too quickly after the back pain incident
The types of back pain:
There are two types of back pain. The first is that your back pain is local and it has to do with some kind of injury to the vertebrae structure. This usually happens either when doing something wrong to your back or through trauma. People who are active and workout a lot can experience back pain more than others because of the stress in that area.
The second type of back pain is one that is followed by other unusual symptoms like irregularities with your bowel movement, loss of appetite, lack of sleep, and other symptoms that need to be discussed with your doctor. This indicates that the back pain is more than just a local injury to the back, it can mean that the back injury is too dangerous or that the back pain isn’t really because of the back but because of other symptoms. Either way, they call for an emergency.
What to do following back pain:
The first thing you need to do is to understand the injury, if you exercise very intensely then you might have just injured your back due to squats, deadlifts, back movements, or anything that causes your back to be in a compromised position. So the first thing is to figure out whether or not this back pain is that serious. You can do this by moving around or trying to hang from a pull-up bar to see if the pain is in the lower back.
The next thing to do is take some anti-inflammation medication and get a lot of rest. However, rest can actually cause more harm than good if you do not give your back the chance to move around. Getting some blood circulation to the back is extremely important, so make sure that you move around as much as you can and get back to your daily activities as soon as possible.
Conclusion:
If the back pain is not getting better or is followed by other symptoms that are unexplainable, then you need to seek medical attention. Some back pain issues are usually not issues with the lower back itself, but they’re symptomatic with other health problems. Therefore, unless your back pain is a local injury, then you don’t need to seek the ER.
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