It's also the No. 1 cause of job disability.2 The University of South Australia now has both good and bad news for back pain sufferers.

The good news is that a majority of people who experience back pain do recover, even if the pain persists for a couple of months. The bad news is that the longer the pain persists, the lower your chances of a full recovery. These are the take-away's from a systematic review and meta-analysis carried out by the University of South Australia. As noted by the authors:3

"For the acute pain cohort, the estimated mean pain score with inception time uncorrected was 56 at baseline, 26 at 6 weeks, 22 at 26 weeks and 21 at 52 weeks (moderate-certainty evidence).

For the subacute pain cohort, the mean pain score was 63 at baseline, 29 at 6 weeks, 29 at 26 weeks and 31 at 52 weeks (moderate-certainty evidence). For the persistent pain cohort, the mean pain score was 56 at baseline, 48 at 6 weeks, 43 at 26 weeks and 40 at 52 weeks (very low-certainty evidence) …

Participants with acute and subacute low back pain had substantial improvements in levels of pain and disability within the first 6 weeks … however, participants with persistent low back pain had high levels of pain and disability with minimal improvements over time …

Identifying and escalating care in individuals with subacute low back pain who are recovering slowly could be a focus of intervention to reduce the likelihood of transition into persistent low back pain."

Pain and Emotional Processing Can Get Cross-Wired

In practical terms, what this means is that if pain persists after your back injury has healed, you need to switch treatment strategies. At that point the pain is probably due to pain system hypersensitivity, and that requires an approach that includes retraining your brain to perceive pain appropriately. As explained in the Harvard Health blog:4

"… it's not just pre-existing attitudes that worsen back pain. The pain itself can rewire your brain. When pain first occurs, it impacts your pain-sensitivity brain circuits. But when pain lasts, the related brain activity switches away from the 'pain' circuits to circuits that process emotions. That's why emotions like anxiety often take center stage in chronic back pain."