How do I know if it’s arthritis or just back pain?
In the morning, my lower back (and hips) hurt really bad when sitting or standing up after sitting for a while. How do I know if this is an arthritis type thing or just back pain from something else? It’s been going on for a couple months now…
If your hips are effected then it may be your Sciatic Nerve.
About the only way to tell anything for sure is with either a XRay, which will tell you if you have arthritis or not, or a MRI which is the only way to determine soft tissue issues, such as your discs’, sciatic nerve,etc.
You can have so much displaced pain when it comes to your back and spine, its best just to have the test run and not second guess whats going on.
Here are a few links that will provide you with some good info from medical professionals.
http://www.uclahealth.org/symptomnav_large.cfm?id=671&oTopID=47
http://www.webmd.com/back-pain/guide/pain-management-back-pain
http://medicinenet.com
This one is a Q & A site on nerve pain
http://health.discovery.com/centers/pain/nerve/nerve.html
And here is some good info on sciatica. It is the National Institute of Health site and it’s worth looking at
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000686.htm
And here is an interesting article you may enjoy
http://www.drbookspan.com/BackPainArticle.html