Understanding chronic low back pain
18 August 2026 · 1 min read
Chronic low back pain is one of the most common reasons people are referred to a pain specialist, and one of the most misunderstood. Imaging often shows changes — disc bulges, facet joint wear, mild nerve compression — that are also present in people with no pain at all.
The goal of a specialist assessment is to work out which of these findings, if any, is actually driving your symptoms. That means listening carefully to how the pain behaves through the day, examining how you move, and correlating that with your scans rather than treating the scan in isolation.
Once the likely source is identified, treatment can be targeted: a diagnostic nerve block, a course of guided exercise, changes to medication, or an image-guided procedure. Most people improve with a combination, and surgery is the exception rather than the rule.