Our body is amazing; we only feel what we need to feel. Our organs cannot “feel” like our skin does. After all, there is no need for the inside of our body to feel things to the same level as the outside of our body so, instead of investing in nerves that don’t really need to be used, our organs only have nerves that can feel stretch, lack of blood supply and inflammation.

When our internal organs send pain messages to our brain the impulse travels via nerves that share a common pathway with nerves that carry pain messages from other parts of our body. Because the number of nerves in this common pathway originating from our organs is small, our brain is unable to resolve exactly where the pain is coming from. Thus, some of the pain is attributed by the brain as having originated from different body areas supplied by this common pathway. For example, an irritated gallbladder can be felt as pain in the right shoulder, or in the muscles that run down the spine. This type of pain is usually called “diffuse or referred” and it’s hard to pin-point exactly where the pain is coming from – you can’t point to it, poke it or “put your finger on it”, instead it’s distributed over a particular area.

This is not the only mechanism by which our organs can cause us musculoskeletal pain. Pure stretch and internal pull on our spine can come from the ligamentous attachment of our intestines onto the rear abdominal wall. These attachments stop our intestines from becoming a mass of tubes on the floor of our abdomen and hang them in an organised way. When our intestines become bigger and heavier from bloating or enlarged from being full of “poo” there is mechanical pull on the tissues of our back originating from inside us. These ligaments runs across the lower back and sacrum, and can increase the sway in our lower spine from an internal pull forwards. The muscles of the lower back then have to work harder to correct that increased lumbar sway and can become fatigued and painful (the tension may even transfer upwards and cause a headache). You ARE able to put your finger on this pain as it IS the same as an overused muscle. However, just massaging or stretching these muscles won’t alleviate the pain for long as the reason for the overused muscle is still present.

Back pain that you either cannot quite put your finger on or that keeps returning, even after massage or stretching, may originate from internal organs themselves. Usually this is accompanied by other signs and symptoms for example, “I get right sided shoulder pain after a fatty meal (like fish and chips)” or, “I get lower back pain at the same time as constipation or bloating”. Sometimes, pain originating from an organ can go unrecognised as it doesn’t behave as a healthcare practitioner would expect or it’s intermittent. Keeping a pain journal, detailing all the things that were happening at the time of the pain, can be quite helpful in finding the common denominator and helping with the correct diagnosis of back pain.

Of course, any long term pain needs to be addressed so please discuss it with your GP or Osteopath.

Don’t suffer pain, book an appointment here or, if you would like any more advice, please give us a phone call and we will do our best to help.

Jeannie Baskeyfield,

Osteopathic Natural Health,

Waimauku and Helensville.