What Is the Difference Between Acute & Chronic Back Pain?

Back pain, whether acute or chronic, is a condition that affects many people. It can range anywhere from mild discomfort to crippling pain and immobility.

Acute Back Pain

• Acute back pain can happen quickly and most often it is unexpected. It most likely occurs from some kind of an injury like sports trauma, a fall, strenuous lifting or even a car accident. This type of back pain is muscular in nature and can heal on its own with time and rest.

  Acute back pain can also flare up unexpectedly from pre-existing conditions like a degenerative spine disease, slipped or herniated discs or even arthritis in the spine. These conditions can also become chronic in nature as the conditions progress.

  Regardless of how it happens, the National Institute of Health (NIH) classifies acute back pain as sudden trauma that lasts anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. When your \"back goes out\" it can severely affect the quality of your life.

Chronic Back Pain

• When the pain lasts longer than a few weeks, or seems to always come back, then it might be chronic back pain. The Mayo Clinic says untreated acute back pain can lead to chronic back pain, but most of the time chronic back pain is nonspecific, where you are not entirely sure what is causing it.

  Chronic back pain can devastate the sufferer with the inability to function normally, especially if it is recurring because there is no specific timetable for when the pain is going to flare up. There is the psychological aspect of chronic pain as well, but this needs to be assessed and addressed by a doctor.

How to Tell The Difference

• While both can be devastatingly painful conditions, the difference between acute and chronic back pain is all about time. If you experience a sudden episode of back pain, whether it is soreness, shooting pains or cramping feelings that prohibit movement, and then you recover after a few weeks, then you most likely had an acute episode.

  If it goes on longer than a few weeks or seems to increase over time, you most likely have a chronic condition and need to seek treatment immediately. A doctor would be able to tell what is wrong with your back with a series of tests that might include an X-ray, MRI or CT of your back and spine.

Treatment Options

• The goal of treatment, whether it is for acute or chronic back pain, is a multifaceted approach to helping the patient. Chronic back pain, more so than acute back pain, has physical and psychological aspects that need to be addressed.

  While pain reduction is the ultimate goal, the Mayo Clinic says treatment options also focus on helping the patient improve function along with managing pain. This includes physical therapy, medication and counseling, usually together. By strengthening the back and the mind, most back pain can be eliminated and the sufferer can go back to a normal, healthy life.

Other Options

• If the conservative approach does not work, then there are alternative options. The NIH suggests alternative treatments such as acupuncture and chiropractic as potential ways to manage back pain. Otherwise the treatments can be more aggressive and involve injections to block the nerve endings in the back and spine, ultrasound, or electrical nerve stimulation to potentially help the nerves from misfiring pain signals. If all of these fail, then surgery might be the option.

  If you have acute back pain, you may require some therapy for it, but once you have completed it, you will most likely be fine. For chronic sufferers of back pain, the treatment time can take a little longer until you find the treatment method that works for you.