Low Back Pain

Have you hurt your back recently or been having ongoing mild to severe back pain for months or even years?

Physiotherapy is a key treatment for back pain, whether it's severe or mild, short or long term. We provide services that can help to relieve your pain, improve your movement and get you back to work, sport or daily activities faster.

Other common symptoms of back pain include:

• Pins and needles in the buttocks, lower limbs or feet
• Pain down the front or back of your leg
• General stiffness in the back
• Pain on movements such as bending forwards or backwards or twisting

The latest research with long standing back pain is evolving to include a more holistic model when it comes to our approach to treatment. These are some interesting facts to consider when dealing with back pain.

• <1% of low back pain has a severe pathological cause i.e. cancer/tumours etc
• 5-10% of back pain has a clear patho-anatomical cause i.e. disc prolapse with nerve compression
• 85-90% of back pain, there is no clear structural cause or fault
• There is a high prevalence of ‘abnormal’ findings’ on MRI in pain-free populations.
• Disc generation – 91%
• Disc bulges – 56%
• Annular tears – 38%
• Disc protrusion – 32%

• Early MRI imaging for back pain can result in poorer outcomes for the patient.

These statistics show us that following a structural or bio-mechanical approach would be detrimental to the care of our patients. There is much more to low back pain then just structure and biomechanics. We need to pay attention to all the lifestyle factors that play a part in increasing or decreasing back pain; movement, stress, sleep and nutrition. It stands to reason that if you’ve got back pain and you’re not sleeping well or are highly stressed that will influence how bad you back pain is. Similarly, if your diet is fully of empty calories and isn’t nutrient dense, you’re not fuelling your body optimally to allow for the best recovery.

At Butel Health Services we are improving our treatment model to incorporate this new research. Namely, we are improving our categorisation and classification of each patient to improve outcomes. We focus on a thorough assessment to work out which combination of lifestyle factors and movements need to be addressed as a priority. We then develop a treatment plan accordingly. We combine this lifestyle approach with manual therapy in the acute phase of low back pain to ensure the best results.

How physiotherapy can help

 We can assess the cause of your pain and provide education and advice on how to stay active and what activities you can continue to do. Treatment may involve a variety of hands on, exercise and educational interventions. As your treatment progresses, we can make an individualised exercise plan that can help your return to activity. All our physiotherapists are constantly updating their skills to keep up to date with the latest research evidence and techniques to provide our patients with the best care possible.

How we're different from other physiotherapists

Have you previously sought treatment, done some exercises and improved your pain, only to have it return in a few weeks or months? We approach back pain a little differently than most. We address all the factors that may be exacerbating your back pain; lifestyle, movement, stress, sleep and help you create a plan for action. Our treatment focuses on hitting short term goals like initial relief of pain combined with a focus on the long term goals e.g returning to running. It is this long term approach that sets us apart and ensures that you're back pain goes away and stays away. All of our appointments are one on one where we start with a thorough assessment of your current symptoms as well as looking at all the lifestyle factors that have been proven to influence pain such as stress and diet. Our practitioners then coach you in making these small changes that will provide you with long term results in reducing your pain. We strongly believe that pain should not be your new normal and we want to optimise your activity and function to lead you to a successful outcome.