Lower Left Back Pain - Should You Visit Your Doctor?

80 per cent of Americans have experienced lower back pain at some point in their lives, so if you're reading this article with back pain, you're amongst the majority. Lower left back pain as with many other back related pain is difficult to diagnose, as there are many different causes, from a muscular injury to more serious life threatening conditions that may require surgery.If you consider your back pain to be chronic, long lasting, has no apparent cause that you know of, or is significantly limiting your ability to do the things that you would normally do, you should immediately see your doctor to eliminate any serious causes. Although lower left back pain is a common problem, is are many other back pains, a large number of people do nothing about it, it could be something as simple as a muscular injury that starts it and requires only stretching to sort out, or could be something more severe in which case it should be seen to as soon as possible.

The diagnosis for pain in the lower left back may be different to that from pains in other areas of the back, and there are many causes of lower left back pain, so do not get frustrated if the doctor does not reach a diagnosis immediately. It takes a process of elimination, including finding if a similar situation exists on the right hand side of the back, as this narrows down the causes. The treatments offered by your doctor will follow this process of elimination, based upon the symptoms that your report, and their expertise.

Lower left back pain has two common areas that cause issues broadly speaking; these are gastrointestinal issues, and kidney issues. Lower left back pain may be felt is the gastrointestinal tract in the left of the body has issues, such as bleeding, ulcers, cancer and so on. Kidney issues, such as kidney stones of a kidney inflammation due to an infection could also cause pain in the lower left of the back. Appendicitis can also cause lower left back pain, even though the appendix is located on the right hand side of the body - this could be due to the infection that caused the appendicitis, the swelling which can displace the balance of the body, and nerve may also be impacted that cause the left side of the back to be affected by pain.
A much more common cause of pain in the lower left of the back is due to a muscular injury, such as a muscular strain, which may get better on its own, or may require stretching and exercise to rebalance the muscles of the body. It is likely though if an injury occurred that it was because of a weakness in that area of the body, which could have been caused by bad posture or bad form when exercising. On this basis it is an excellent idea to ensure that you stretch and strengthen the back to ensure that it goes beyond just healing, and actually becomes more resilient to injury in the future.

Seeing a doctor is really important especially pain that is severe, or you have had for a long time, and through consultation with your doctor will eliminate the more serious causes of lower left back pain. Ensure that you give your doctor as much detail as possible whilst in the consultation, as they will be better able to provide a diagnosis, or eliminate more causes this way. If there is a family history of issues of this sort, that is an important consideration that you must tell your doctor. Try to remember when the pain occurred, and on a scale of 1 - 10, 10 being the worst, how bad the pain was, and how long it lasted. Keep a diary if you need to, but do not spend a long time documenting, when instead you could solve the problem of the pain in your back with your doctor.