Back pain & sports injuries specialists in Bristol

To understand where your back has gone wrong, you need to have some idea how a normal, healthy spine works. It's structure is highly sophisticated, with 24 bones stacked upon each other like a wobbling column of cotton reels rising up out of the pelvis in the very centre of the body. The boney column is a case for the spinal cord which travels down from the brain and sends out branches at every level of the spine to carry messages to every square centimetre of the body. Thick ligaments link the bones together to help give the structure some stability.

In between the cotton reels are the spongey, water filled shock absorbers - the discs. They are tough structures, but they have no blood supply and scant nerve supply which means they rely on other means to get their nutrition and to stay alive and healthy.

Did you know that…

If a spinal segment of two vertebrae and a disc is placed under compressive load in the laboratory the bone shatters before the disc will burst...

Finally there are the facet joints. The boney junction between the vertebrae above and below, the two surfaces glide over each other like stop ramps and act as limiters to prevent us over rotating and a tight bag encloses the surfaces containing fluid, to allow that smooth movement. 

All of these structures form part of the working structure of the human spine and together give the spine it's formidable strength, stability and range of movement.