Type the words “back pain” into Google™ and you will receive 20 million hits. Back pain is so common that almost everyone experiences an episode of significant, limiting back pain at some point in their lives. In a sense, death, taxes, and back pain are unavoidable. The good news is that most back pain resolves within a matter of days and leaves no lasting limitations.

In the day of the internet, an abundance of information is literally at our fingertips regarding back problems – not all is necessarily helpful or even accurate. Literally only a handful of treatments have scientifically proven benefit – and this does not include magnets, acupuncture, or many other things advertised on late night television.

A good portion of a spine surgeon’s practice is devoted to educating patients regarding what is helpful and what is not. The purpose of this article is to discuss the top myths surrounding back-related issues.

Myth #1: “My back hurts so bad that something must be terribly wrong”

Low back strains can be quite painful and limiting. Even getting out of bed and tying shoes can be difficult with a strained back. The good news is that it usually lasts no more than a few days. Serious problems are actually quite rare. Unfortunately, sometimes well-meaning friends and family can compound the anxiety by offering their points of view. I once saw a woman with back pain who was told by a friend, “Oh yes, Mable had back pain and it turned out to be cancer.” The worst part was that she was told this on the first day of a ten-day cruise. What did this poor lady think about the remaining nine days? I was able to reassure her that she did not, in fact, have cancer, and she recovered as expected within a matter of days.

Myth #2: “Bed rest is good for an ailing back”

For many illnesses, this may be true. Not so for back strains. Doctors routinely recommended strict bed rest for 7-10 days as recently as a few decades ago. Point of fact, those individuals take much longer to recover than those people who are encouraged to remain as active as their pain will allow. Bed rest causes muscles to atrophy, whereas activity promotes use of the back muscles and actually speeds healing.

Myth #3: “Once you have back surgery, you’ll need another, and another, etc”

The spine is a very complex part of the body. Many things can impact the need for surgery. Even after successful treatment of a problem at one disk, it is not uncommon to see additional problems at other disk levels. Although technically still involving the spine, it may be a different structure altogether.

If someone has knee arthritis and requires total knee replacement, they are never dissuaded if the other knee wears out and needs a knee replacement, as well. The only connection is the disease process – arthritis – occurring in the joints. There is a small portion of patients who have complications from surgery, and who ultimately require additional operations. For the most common problems, such as pinched nerves and instability of the spine, the majority of patients only require a single operation.

Myth #4: “My job has ruined my back”

A recent study compared the spinal MRIs of sets of identical twins with drastically different jobs. For example, one twin doing a lifetime of office work, compared to the other doing a lifetime of construction. The startling conclusion of this study is that the spinal MRIs were nearly identical in almost all cases. With aging, the disks in the low back tend to degenerate just like most other parts of the body. Some environmental factors do impact aging, such as smoking and obesity, but the most important factor is genetic.

Myth #5: “My x-rays/MRI are abnormal, therefore I will always have problems”

Many people have abnormalities on x-rays or MRI studies, but have no significant pain or limitation. Often the severity of pain does not correlate very well with findings on imaging studies. In the practice of spine surgery, we have a saying, “Treat the patient and not the x-rays.” Just as your body ages – people who are 40 appear to be 40 – your spine ages as well. By the time we reach our sixties, the majority of us have at least some degree of disk degeneration in our spines.

Fortunately, reliable and useful information can be found in a variety of ways. For the particular details of your specific problem, the best advice and direction for treatment begins with your family doctor. Ultimately, they may refer you to physician specializing in the treatment of spinal disorders. For additional links and information, please visit the North American Spine Society at http://www.spine.org/Pages/Default.aspx and American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons at www.aaos.org.