Is Your Back Infected?
Back pain is a common ailment. It is a condition that is as prevalent as the common cold. Eight out of ten people suffer from back pain sometime or other. An equal percentage of the Americans too, nearly 80%, are affected by back pain at least once in their lives. The National Health Interview Survey conducted by the National Institute of Health has found out recently that 26 percent of American adults have suffered from back ache that lasted for at least a day in the last six months. If you ever groan, “Oh, my aching back!”, don’t worry. You have a lot of company.
The causes of back pain are attributed to various factors. Some of the causes are self inflicted as a result of bad health habits such as: a slumped sitting posture, wrong way of lifting heavy objects, and unchecked weight gain. Other causes are injuries or accidents. Infection is also a cause of back pain.
Back Pain Due to Kidney Infection
Most physicians are well schooled on the diagnosis and treatment of kidney infection, and kidney stones. That isn’t what I want to spend my time on here.
Tuberculosis and Back Pain
Tuberculosis is becoming more common again, and this time it is a lot worse. The common strains of TB in America are regularly drug resistant, and extremely hard to treat.
TB bacteria can attack the spinal bones, and it’s called Pott’s disease when the spine is affected. The back pain of Pott’s disease is a result of weakening of the bones by the infection, and the fractures that result from that. This is not something to take lightly, or ignore. It needs attention from infectious disease specialists, and possibly surgeons.
Herpes Virus infection and Back Pain
Nearly fifty to eighty percent of American adults are affected by the herpes simplex virus (HSV). There are two strains of herpes virus: HSV-1 and HSV-2. Of the two types of herpes virus the type two is sexually transmitted and causes genital herpes. Genital herpes is present in nearly 50 million Americans and every year 500,000 young people are affected by the herpes virus. Genital herpes can also be caused by type one herpes virus. The type one herpes virus is responsible for oral sores that appear near the lips after cold and fever.
HSV-1 is nearly universal in Americans, and commonly lies dormant for years in the body. It can infect nerve cells. When it infects nerve cells in the spine it can cause pain spreading from the back, down the leg. If this is occurs in the presence of bulged or ruptured spinal disks, a neurosurgeon may decide the disk is the cause of the pain and operate on the disk. This will not benefit the HSV-1 infection at all, and may make the pain worse.
Good nutrition will help to keep the herpes virus in check, and can suppress an active infection. Lysine and arginine are two amino acids that are most effective in combating the breakouts. The goal is to have more lysine and less of arginine in the diet. Deficient lysine, and relative excess of arginine makes a flare up of HSV-1 more likely. Most fruits and vegetables are rich in lysine and low in arginine. Here is a chart of food items Herpes Diet that can give an idea of how to enrich a diet with nutrients to fight the virus and keep them in check. When the virus in held in check the symptoms of herpes also disappear.
Your physician needs to recognize that HSV-1 infection can cause back pain. He can order the lab tests to confirm whether it is likely the problem, and get you onto the proper diet to suppress the virus. Nutrition is the only real way we have to suppress HSV-1 and get you healthy again.