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Back pain can be caused by an accident or an injury to the spine. Or it can be caused by a degenerative disease, metabolic diseases or be congenital. It can be the result of developmental problems or a tumour.
Use this list as a basis of the possible causes of back pain:
| Possible causes | It can be one of these diseases |
| Degenerative (related to ageing) | Discogenic disease; spinal stenosis; spondylitic disease; facet joint hypertrophy |
| Traumatic (related to injury or an accident, including motorcycle accidents, diving accidents and rugby injuries) | Vertebral fractures; lumbar strains and sprains; ligamentous injuries, musculoskeletal injuries |
| Inflammatory (usually a chronic type of inflammation) | Arachnoiditis; arthritis (e.g. ankolysing spondylitis) |
| Infective (this can be due to a bacterial of viral infection) | Meningitis; vertebral osteomyelitis; epidural abscess; urinary tract infection; intervertebral discitis; radiculopathy |
| Congenital (you are born with these) | Spondylosis; tethered cord syndromes |
| Developmental (becomes more apparent in adolescents) | Scoliosis; sacral agenesis; Scheuermann's kyphosis |
| Metabolic | Osteoporosis; Paget's disease; diabetic radiculopathy |
| Tumour | It can either be a benign tumour or malignant. A malignant tumour can be primary or metastatic. |
- (Health24.com)
