What Could Be Causing Your Lower Back Pain?
Hey there, Dr. Zac Cummins with Infinity Wellness Center.
What I’m going over with you guys today is a few tests that you can do at home to figure out what’s causing this lower back pain you’ve been struggling with.
Is that lower back pain coming from a disc herniation, maybe a joint misalignment or subluxation, or potential muscle tightness pinching and irritating that nerve?
With lower back pain, if you’re having sciatica, the sciatic nerve starts from your neck and actually goes all the way down into your leg to the bottom of your foot.
Test for Sciatica Caused by a Disc Herniation
What we’re going to do first with this first test is determine if you have sciatica caused by a disc herniation.
For this first test, I want you to sit up nice and tall. Then, you’ll slouch your body down, tuck your chin, lift up the leg that is affected, and pull your foot toward you.
If that does increase pain in your lower back, or you get this electrical shock down into your leg or foot, that could tell us you have a disc herniation.
Test for Muscle Tension Against the Nerve
We can also find out if it’s not a disc herniation. If you don’t have pain doing that test, the next test would be very similar, with that forward-bending test and pulling that foot forward, but then turning that foot outward.
If you have pain doing that one, that could let us know it could be possible muscle tension tightened up against that nerve, causing some of that lower back pain.
The FABER or Figure-Four Test
The final test that you can do at home to find out what’s causing your lower back pain is known as the FABER test, or the figure-four test.
What you’ll do is lie on your back. With your affected leg, you’re going to lift it up and bend it so that your foot goes over your opposite knee. Allow this knee here to fall down toward the table.
If this does cause pain, whether it’s in your hip or in your lower back, that could be a potential subluxation in your lower back that could be causing that lower back pain.
Finding Out What’s Truly Causing the Pain
These three simple tests can be done at home, but if you are wanting to find out more details about what’s truly causing it, give us a call. We would love to figure out how we can help you.
