If you’re reading this, your back pain is likely bad enough to keep you from sleeping, which makes everything worse. Poor sleep can make the pain worse, make you feel more tired during the day, and make several other health problems worse, like heart disease, diabetes, and weight gain.

Several health problems can cause nighttime back pain, but inflammatory back pain from conditions like axial spondyloarthritis or ankylosing spondylitis is often overlooked (AS). Over time, these types of arthritis can cause joint damage, leading to inflammation, constant pain, and, in some cases, bone fusion in the spine. They can also affect other areas of your body, including your spine.

Ankylosing Spondylitis and Back Pain at Night:

Both mechanical and inflammatory factors might contribute to discomfort in the back. Mechanical back pain is caused by problems with how the joints, discs, muscles, tendons, and ligaments of your spine work together. Most cases of back pain are caused by mechanical back pain, which can be brought on by overuse injuries, bad posture, or a herniated disc.

On the other hand, inflammatory back pain happens when your immune system goes wrong and attacks your spine’s joints, sacroiliac joints, and entheses. Back discomfort that wakes you up in the second half of the night may be caused by ankylosing spondylitis.

People with mechanical back pain don’t often have stiffness and pain that wakes them up early in the morning. It’s rare. Midnight back discomfort that prevents sleep is occasional.

Back pain caused by something physical is usually made better by resting or going to sleep. You should be able to sleep through the night even if you aren’t comfortable.

On the other hand, your inflammatory back pain gets worse when you rest. When you sit still for a long time like when you sleep, chemicals that cause inflammation build up in your joints. This makes pain and stiffness worse. Because of this, people with inflammatory back pain may have nightmares and wake up stiff and sore.

Causes:

Most of the time, back pain at night is not a sign of a severe health problem. But if it happens often or starts to get in the way of your life, you should see a doctor right away.

Some reasons why:

Lumbar strains and sprains happen when the muscles or ligaments in the lower back are stretched too far. These types of injuries happen pretty often.
Extremely uncommon, ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a kind of arthritis that causes chronic neck and back pain and swelling. It has been shown that exercise can help ease the symptoms of AS. They might get worse overnight.
Osteoarthritis of the backbone: Wear and tear on the spine may make the pain you feel at night worse. That could be because you don’t move around as much.
Sciatica: Some ways of sleeping could hurt the sciatic nerve. Pains shoot through your legs all the time.
Spinal growths and tumors are not very common. If the change is pushing your back, lying down may worsen the pain.
Spinal stenosis: This condition can pressure nerves and narrow the spinal column.

When should I go to the doctor?

We all process suffering differently. However, if you have any of the following signs, don’t delay to call your doctor:

started with a specific injury
It stays with you for more than a few days and keeps you up at night.
It feels rough and spreads to many body parts, like your legs.
Comes with signs of infection like fever, swelling, redness, tingling, numbness, or weakness in the legs

Diagnosis:

To figure out what’s wrong with you, your medical professional will do a physical examination. Prepare to talk about your medical history so that any possible health problems can be found or ruled out.

Your doctor will ask you to explain how your pain feels. Keep in mind:

How big it is (aching, burning, throbbing)
How poisonous it is (how strong it is)
Whether you also feel tingling or numbness or not

There may be a need for more tests, such as the ones below, to help with the diagnosis:

Neurologic exams check how sensitive the skin is and how strong the muscles are to see if the pain is coming from the nerves or the spine.
Imaging tests like MRIs and CT scans can help rule out fractures, infections, and cancers.
Lab tests like a complete blood count may help if you have an illness or lose weight for no apparent reason that could be caused by cancer or inflammatory arthritis.

Treatment:

How you are treated will depend on what is making you hurt. Most of the time, doctors start with painkillers and simple Back Massage such as:

Medications that alleviate discomfort are available over the counter.
Along with physical therapy steroids, light stretching or exercise that strengthens the core muscles that support the lower back can help reduce inflammation.
During an epidural, painkillers are injected into the spine.
A little back massage can also help you.

Since the pain only happens at night, your doctor will probably want to change where you sleep. You might need to change your sleep, pillows, or mattress. If you need more information about Back Massage kindly contact us.

Top Place for London Massage:

Deep Tissue Massage London – Ashiatsu
+44 7784 609599
London
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