Back Pain

Your healthcare professional examines your back and assesses your ability to sit, stand, walk and lift your legs. The health professional also might ask you to rate your pain on a scale of zero to 10 and to talk about how your pain affects your daily activities.

These assessments help determine where the pain comes from and how much you can move before pain or muscle spasms force you to stop. Exams also can help rule out more-serious causes of back pain.

One or more of these tests might help pinpoint the cause of the back pain:

• X-ray. These images show arthritis or broken bones. But the images alone won’t find conditions affecting the spinal cord, muscles, nerves or disks.
• MRI or CT scans. These scans generate images that can reveal herniated disks or problems with bones, muscles, tissue, tendons, nerves, ligaments and blood vessels.
• Blood tests. These can help determine whether an infection or other condition might be causing pain.
• Nerve studies. Electromyography (EMG) measures the electrical impulses produced by the nerves and how the muscles respond to them. This test can confirm pressure on the nerves caused by herniated disks or narrowing of the spinal canal, called spinal stenosis.