Symptoms
Simple or mechanical thoracic back pain is pain felt in the back alone. It is important to treat this early and effectively and exclude sinister causes such as infection, spine instability and tumours. Bed rest and immobility are not recommended for more than 2 to 3 days. Continuation of a normal life style using regular over-the-counter painkillers careful goal-targeted exercises suffice and physiotherapy suffice for the majority.
Patients with thoracic back pain with referred symptoms may have prolapsed discs compressing nerves, inflammation in the joints between the bones of the vertebral bodies, (facet joints), arthritis or degeneration in the same bones with resulting nerve compression and referred pain. This nerve compression results in pain radiating around the chest wall, that is shooting pains to the sternum, stomach or groin and this is referred pain.
Thoracic spinal pain is less common than pain in the cervical and lumbar areas. It is most common following vertebral collapse on Osteoporosis. When present in young people it is often indicative of Scheuermann’s disease.
Diagnosis and Treatment
The investigation and treatment is the same as that for lumbar and neck pain.
How I can help
There is no need to suffer with debilitating thoracic back pain; help is at hand! If you are suffering with back pain and it will not go away despite the passage of time and using simple pain relieving medications, physiotherapy etc., then I can see you for a comprehensive evaluation of your problem.
Sometimes I alone cannot help you and I work closely with colleagues – surgeons, physiotherapists and psychologists which is important in such care – the multidisciplinary team.
Email health@gmail.com or call us on 0845 225 2215 for an appointment. Leave a message if you get through to a voicemail and you will be called back.
