Lower Back Pain
Marc Darrow, M.D.

Question: I have back pain, lower back pain, diagnosed as a degenerative disc in the 5th lumbar, I am actually going in for another MRI, then I am scheduled to go into pain management with my doctor. I have constant pain.

Dr. Darrow: I have good news for you, I get at least one or two new people a day that have the same thing that you do and because the disc, the cushion that is between the vertebrae, is dried out or degenerated, they think that this is where their pain is coming from and it is not.

It is very rare that I find a patient with degenerative disc disease, which is what you apparently have between the L4-and L5, apparently, that have their pain coming from that diagnosis of degenerative disc disease.

How is that? Because a doctor will look at the MRI or the X-ray and tells the patient that is where the pain is coming from and people then go onto surgery and/or pain management which is pain medication. So do you get the MRI before you come to see us?

You can get an MRI, See Sciatica-Radicular Pain-MRI the problem is the doctors don't use their hands to find out where the problem is, they use the MRI imagery. What I find in most people, and I just had one come in, is that it is a sprain (Ligament laxity) causing the problem. This patient I recently saw came in, he had been seen by many doctors, specialists, orthopedic surgeons, they didn't know what to do with him, (because it was not clear on MRI) in one minute after touching his low back I told him that he had a sprain of iliolumbar ligament and the interspinous ligament between the vertabrae.

The iliolumbar ligament is where the pelvis attaches to the L4/L5 vertabrae. If you are one of the lucky people who if I touch that area and it hurts we can fix that with Prolotherapy.