Understanding Back Pain: Upper Back Pain

If you’ve ever dealt with upper back pain, you know it’s not fun.

Upper back pain is a common form of pain that many adults experience.

Data from the National Health Information Survey in the US shows that the prevalence of upper back pain in the US is about 39% of adults.

This pain can be either temporary or chronic, depending on the cause and severity.

This pain can be caused by injuries, fractures, and other issues and can lead to trouble walking, pain with overhead reaching, headaches, and difficulty breathing if it affects your chest and lungs.

Whatever the case, you may benefit from natural pain management solutions.

At Capitol Physical Therapy, we can help.

While it may sometimes feel like there is nothing you can do about back pain, the services of a pain management physical therapy clinic can go a long way toward helping you find relief.

Today we’re going to take a closer look at the upper back, some of the possible causes of upper back pain, and what sorts of strategies your local physical therapist might use to help you manage it.

Keep reading to find out more about upper back pain and what can be done about it.

What Is Upper Back Pain?

Upper back pain can occur anywhere between the base of your neck and the bottom of your rib cage.

To better understand your upper back, we need to talk about your spine.

There are three main parts of your spine:

• The lumbar spine, which corresponds with your lower back
• The thoracic spine, which makes up your mid back to upper back
• The cervical spine, also known as your neck

The largest portion of your back is the thoracic spine.

The upper thoracic spine specifically, is characterized by muscle groups that control your shoulders, shoulder blades, arms, and spinal rotation.

Your thoracic spine also contains small bones, called vertebrae, which form your backbone.

Each of these vertebrae is connected to a pair of ribs.

Your ribs wrap around your body to the front of your chest, where there is a long, flat bone down the center, known as your sternum.

This forms your rib cage.

The bones in your upper back work with your ribs to keep them stable and protect vital organs, such as your heart.

Your upper back also contains discs that separate your vertebrae and absorb shock while you move around.

Muscles and ligaments also hold the spine together.

Upper back pain, in particular, relates to soreness in your upper thoracic spine.

It’s often related to poor posture, poor work setup, or trigger points.

However, these aren’t the only causes.

We’ll look at some other common factors that can contribute to upper back pain later on.

You might not necessarily realize you have an upper back issue, since it may manifest in shoulder pain and dysfunction.

While upper back pain is less common than lower back pain, it can still affect one in five people.

Upper Back Pain Symptoms

Upper back pain can manifest in a number of different ways.

Pain can range from mild to severe.

The pain could be felt as:

• Numbness and tingling
• Weakness
• Tight or stiff muscles
• Burning
• Sharpness
• Aching, throbbing pain
• Pain that radiates along a nerve

In severe cases, you may lose control of bowel or bladder movements.

What Causes Upper Back Pain?

Generally speaking, upper back pain is less common than lower back pain and neck pain.

This is because the bones in your upper back, along with your ribs, keep your upper back stable.

So your upper back doesn’t move as much as your lower back or neck.

Although they don’t flex or move as much, they’re still susceptible to injury.

Since your upper back consists of bones, ligaments, muscles, and discs, injuries to any of these aspects of the upper back may cause upper back pain.

These injuries could occur from physical trauma or unsafe lifting techniques.

The most common cause of upper back pain is back strains and sprains.

There are a variety of conditions that can also result in upper back pain.

Some other causes of upper back pain include:

• Kyphosis
• Spinal issues
• Degenerative disk disease
• A herniated disc in the spinal column
• Decreased thoracic mobility
• Poor posture
• Osteoarthritis
• Rheumatoid arthritis or other types of arthritis
• Excess thoracic use due to limited cervical or lumbar use
• Lung cancer
• Fibromyalgia
• Compression fractures potentially due to osteoporosis

Sports injuries, falls, and injuries from car accidents are also frequent causes of upper back pain.

Pain in the thoracic or upper back region can also impact the shoulders, neck, and lower back.

RELATED ARTICLE: Guide to Low Back Pain

Physical Therapy Treatments For Upper Back Pain

If you’re dealing with chronic pain in your upper back, a physical therapist can help.

RELATED ARTICLE: Physical Therapy for Back and Neck Pain

Let’s have a look at some of the treatment options your physical therapist might use to help you find relief.

1. Hot And Cold Therapy

Hot-and-cold therapy is a form of therapy that involves using temperature changes for natural pain management.

Sometimes you might wonder whether it’s best to use a heating pad or an ice pack for an injury.

However, these two opposite types of therapies can be used in conjunction with each other.

Using heat helps increase blood flow to an area, bringing increased levels of nutrients and oxygen to the injured site while also taking away waste byproducts.

Heat will help with stiffness and loosening of your muscles and joints.

On the other hand, cold therapy can be used to reduce inflammation, pain, and muscle spasms.

Your physical therapist will help you understand how exactly to use hot and cold physical therapy to best find relief.

2. Manual Therapy

Manual therapies offered by your physical therapist will depend on the originating cause of your back pain.

Physical therapy, in this case, is delivered by the hands instead of a device or machine.

This often involves some form of massage, such as soft tissue mobilization, to relax muscles that are seized and spasming.

Massage uses friction and pressure to relieve tension and reduce pain.

3. Dry Needling

Dry needling therapy is a procedure where sterilized filiform needles are placed at muscle knots, called trigger points.

It’s used as a way to provide treatment for muscle pain due to a variety of causes, and can be used to help increase range of motion and decrease pain.

It can also help to reduce inflammation at the site of an injury.

Although dry needling may seem similar to acupuncture on the surface, they are not the same procedure.

Acupuncture comes from traditional Chinese medicine, while dry needling originates from Western medicine practices.

4. Stretches And Exercises

Stretches and exercises can be used to help increase strength, flexibility, range of motion, and core stability.

If you’re looking for a recommended exercise, pilates has many health benefits, and reducing back pain is one of them.

There are many exercises that can help to improve your posture , which may be the cause of your back pain.

A personalized program could also be designed to factor in your personal health history, as well as the cause of your back pain, to determine what stretches and exercises are best for you.

This may include exercises that you do with a physical therapist and those that you do on your own at home.

Book Your Appointment With Capitol Physical Therapy Today

Do you have a condition such as arthritis which leaves you with upper back pain?

Maybe you’re recovering from a sports or running injury, and it’s left you with lingering upper back issues that just won’t go away.

Experiencing persistent pain can make focusing on other things difficult, and sometimes leave you wondering if there’s any relief.

At Capitol Physical Therapy, we can help.

Serving the Washington, DC and Upper Marlboro, Maryland areas, one of our professional physical therapists can offer you physical therapy treatments.

We can help reduce your upper back pain, and improve your back health so you can avoid more issues in the future.

Book an appointment today, and find relief from the chronic pain you’ve been dealing with.

Book your appointment at one of our physical therapy clinics in the DC area today, to get started.