Your health care provider usually can identify conditions that
commonly cause low back pain through the features of your
history. Typical characteristics of the more common,
identifiable causes of low back pain are outlined in the table
below. Unfortunately, for most people with low back pain, no
definitive cause is ever found. In these cases, there are rarely
any "red flag" symptoms, such as numbness or tingling in a leg,
that would point to a life-threatening cause. The pain is
nonspecific meaning there is no strong suggestion from your
symptoms that any one condition is the cause of your pain. In
addition, the pain tends to improve on its own or with
conservative treatment, such as rest, within a few weeks.
However, low back pain of uncertain cause may also become
chronic, persisting for months or years. In these cases, low
back pain can be a major source of suffering and frustration. As
for whether low back pain (or other types of pain) may be
psychological in origin, there is no easy way to know. But a r