Vitamin D Deficiency in Patients with Low Back Pain:Dr Babita Ghai

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Chandigarh 10^th February:-  Back pain is one of the most common reasons for workplace sick leave. 50% of the working population will experience back pain symptoms at least once per year. Back pain can have a profound effect on a person's overall health and social life. In a recent study low back pain ranked as one of the most "disabling" conditions and sixth in terms of usage of health funding. Also this problem is rising even in younger population because of life style changes, lack of physical activities and excessive computer and TV usage. A recent study found that about 20 percent of people affected by acute low back pain develop chronic low back pain with persistent symptoms at one year.

Back pain is caused due to several factors including improper posture during daily activities, work related injury, lifting heavy weights, vitamin D deficiency and other factors. Evidence suggests that proper posture along with exercise therapy have found to be a promising option to prevent acute low back to chronic debilitating back pain.

Dr Babita Ghai Professor, Anaesthesia and consultant pain clinic, PGI, Chandigarh conducted as DST UT sponsored study to find out prevalence of Vitamin D deficiency in patients with low back pain and found that about 86% of people have below normal vitamin D levels, out of which nearly 45% had moderate to severe deficiency and nearly 3% had undetectable Vitamin D levels. This data is published in a renowned Journal "Pain Physician" and is freely available online.

Doctors at PGI, Chandigarh in collaboration with NIPER (authors: Dr. Babita Ghai, of PGI and Dr. Dipika Bansal of NIPER) have prepared an educational booklet on back pain for general people and for people suffering with back pain. The booklet contains facts about back pain, proper posture explanation and exercises in a pictorial manner along with proper explanation for the sake of wide range of people who can gain from the information. This booklet also discusses some of the myths about back pain. This booklet is presently available in English and is translated in Hindi and Punjabi as well and will be also available in these two languages soon.

Lower back pain can be treated with exercise, physical therapy and, in some cases, medication. For difficult lower back pain problems – including sciatica, spinal stenosis, and pain in nearby joints – epidural (near the spinal cord) injections may be used. Surgery may be indicated if red flag signs (motor weakness, involvement of bladder or bowel etc.) are present.

This public awareness program by PGI, Chandigarh is aimed to educate and improve awareness in public about back pain and its causes, and its prevention and treatment strategies available.

Prof. Babita Ghai, Department of Anesthesia, Consultant pain clinic, PGI, Chandigarh will discuss basics back, causes and risk factors of back pain and non surgical management options for back pain.