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So let’s talk a little bit about risk factors for back pain. And some that are maybe self evident and some that aren’t. First of all is age. And the four types of back pain that we’ve talked about today, generally we can divide them up. Acute low back pain where your back goes out, that can start really at any age. Although certainly you’re going to see that acute muscular tendinous stuff that’s going to occur, 30s, 40s, or 50s, 60s. Is just start slowing down and 70s and 80s a lot less so. For back pain and the ruptured disc, I’ve always been fond of saying that when you’re young and in your 20s that material which is called the annulus, which is a ligament that holds in the disc rupture or holds in the disc material itself that is really in good shape and like a bicycle that ages and the tire ages and the tube ages, so does that annulus and you then again start having a higher risk, 30s, 40s, 50s. Although occasionally you’ll see ruptured discs in teenagers and we now know that ruptured as teenagers behave just like they do in adults. But then as we start slowing down and the disc dries out more than also much less risk of it than herniating seventies eighties nineties although any spine surgeon can tell you that they’ve had patients in probably all those age groups, maybe not in the 90s who’s had a true, bonafide ruptured disc. Chronic low back pain. You can see it from adolescence. You can see it in 20 year olds, 30 year olds, every decade that you’ve ever seen, and there really is no specific age that defines it. Lumbar stenosis, fourth group by and large, major category, people with back pain that goes to the legs associated with walking and standing. That’s almost always 50s and up.
