The common incidence of lower back pain is frightening and ever-growing. Why has the human lumbar spine suddenly become completely unable to function without pain? The simple answer is that is hasn’t. However, studying the statistics of lower back pain would make any logical person think otherwise…
Lower back pain is a horrific burden to bear. It is not only agonizing, but also functionally-impairing and disruptive to living a typical productive lifestyle. Lower back pain is also one of the most common explanations for disability. Meanwhile the treatment for lower back pain often results in some of the worst outcomes, including creating drug-addicted people who suffer failed surgery and a downward spiral of chronic pain.
This disturbing discussion focuses on the incidence of lower back pain among the general population. We will explore why so many people suffer lower back symptoms and also profile the reasons why pain tends to persist or resolve. If you are a student of back pain, this dialog is a must read!
Incidence of Lower Back Pain Statistics
It is known that more than 85% of the human population will suffer serious lower back pain at some point in life. Of this majority, many people will develop chronic symptoms that may persist for months, years or even decades. Of the countless patients with chronic pain, some will actually never recover. Worse still, their pain will lead directly or indirectly towards premature death, often after a long period of disability. These are shocking facts!
Why is lower back pain so rampant? Why was lower back pain rarely even mentioned in the historic medical record dating back only a few decades ago? Humans have been recording healthcare data for millennia and lower back pain really only begins to show up as a major threat to modern human life around 70 years ago, following World War 2. Why did this dramatic increase in low back pain occur and how can it be stopped?
Incidence of Lumbar Back Pain Evidence
Studying the modern low back pain epidemic provides some important clues as to its origin and propagation mechanism:
Lower back pain is mostly often blamed on structural issues in the spine. To our knowledge, the human spine has not changed much in the past 70 to 80 years to suddenly explain why so many people are suffering pain due to structural degeneration, injury or irregularity.
Lower back pain is also commonly blamed on functional issues in the soft tissues and joints of the dorsal anatomy. Once again, to our knowledge, the manner in which human body functions has not changed much over the past several decades. We sit, stand, play and work, just like we did before.
If anything, we are much better off now than we were decades ago. We have better quality of healthcare and a greater insight as to the human anatomy and how it works. We should be suffering less pain, but the opposite is true. Year over year, lower back pain becomes more prevalent and shows no sign of ending anytime soon.
Incidence of Lower Back Pain vs Cures
The worst part about our current epidemic of lower back pain is that effective treatment has become virtually impossible to find, while cures are almost the stuff of legend. How many people with severe lower back pain do you who found true and lasting cures? Regardless of the methods of lower back pain treatment utilized, including drugs, physical therapy, injections and surgery, most people will continue to suffer to one degree or another, while many patients actually seem to deteriorate in condition in direct response to treatment!
Incredibly, the treatments used are certainly pathological in most instances. We have never seen a person die from severe lower back pain itself. However, we have been the sad witnesses of innumerable deaths caused by drugs and surgical butchery for conditions that are highly unlikely to even be the true causes of suffering. Terribly, this insanity of ineffective and dangerous treatment is getting worse around the world. What can be done to change our seemingly hopeless torture at the hands of lower back pain?
We have been writing on this topic for over 15 years. Our guidance is surprisingly simple. Learn more. Read more. Understand why the typical reasons used to explain the causes of lower back pain are virtually universally flawed. Understand that misdiagnosed lower back pain is the rule, rather than the exception. If you can do this much, you have already done more than 99% of diagnosed patients who are herded to slaughter like passive lambs to fuel a greedy and soulless medical juggernaut.
