Symptom checker
Lower Back Pain Symptom Checker
Lower back pain is the most common place in the spine to hurt and also the hardest to pin down, because several very different problems produce a similar ache across the belt line. Whether the pain stays local or runs into the buttock and leg is one of the most useful things you can tell a clinician, and it is where this checker starts.
Free symptom checker, built by spine surgeons
Answer questions about your symptoms and add your MRI, CT or X-ray report if you have one. You get a written summary of what your answers point toward, and what to ask about next.
Start the free assessmentWhat the assessment asks you
- Whether the pain stays in the low back or travels into the buttock, thigh or calf.
- Whether bending forward, standing, or walking a distance changes it.
- Whether sitting relieves it or makes it worse, which separates several causes.
- Any numbness, pins and needles or weakness in the legs or feet.
- What a lumbar MRI or X-ray report says, if you have one.
Conditions this can point to
Each guide below is written by a spine surgeon and sets out what the condition is, how it is assessed, and the warning signs it carries.
- Lower Back
Mechanical Low Back Pain
The most common type of low back pain: aching or stiffness confined to the lower back, without leg pain, that usually improves on its own with time and activity.
- Lower Back
Lumbar Disc Herniation
When part of a disc in the lower back displaces and presses on a nerve root, causing sciatica: pain, numbness, or weakness down the leg.
- Lower Back
Lumbar Spinal Stenosis
Narrowing of the spinal canal in the lower back that crowds the nerves, causing leg pain and heaviness with standing and walking that eases when you sit or lean forward.
- Lower Back
Degenerative Spondylolisthesis
A condition in which one lumbar vertebra slips forward on the one below due to age-related wear, narrowing the spinal canal and causing back pain and leg symptoms.
- Lower Back
Isthmic Spondylolisthesis
A forward slip of one lumbar vertebra onto the one below, caused by a stress fracture in the small bony bridge at the back of the spine.
- Lower Back
Lumbar Foraminal Stenosis
A narrowing of the bony exit channel through which a lumbar nerve root leaves the spine, causing sharp, radiating leg pain, numbness, and sometimes weakness.
- Pelvis
SI Joint Pain as a Spine Mimic
Pain from the SI joint, where your pelvis meets the base of your spine, is commonly mistaken for a lumbar disc or nerve problem.
- General
Hip Osteoarthritis as a Spine Mimic
Hip osteoarthritis frequently mimics lumbar spine conditions by producing groin, thigh, and buttock pain that overlaps with spinal nerve-root territories, making accurate diagnosis essential before any treatment is started.
Common questions
- What is causing my lower back pain?
- The usual sources are the lumbar discs, the facet joints at the back of the spine, the sacroiliac joint where the spine meets the pelvis, or narrowing that is crowding a nerve. Pain that stays across the low back points one way. Pain that runs below the knee points another. This checker separates them by asking what the pain does rather than only where it is.
- Is my lower back pain serious?
- Most lower back pain is not dangerous and settles. The exceptions are worth knowing precisely: new bladder or bowel changes, numbness around the groin or inner thighs, worsening leg weakness, fever, a significant injury, or a history of cancer with new pain. Any of those need urgent assessment rather than watchful waiting.
- Why does my lower back hurt more when I walk?
- Pain and heaviness in the legs that build up while walking and ease when you sit or lean forward is a recognisable pattern, and narrowing of the spinal canal is one common explanation for it. Circulation problems can produce something similar, and telling the two apart matters because they are treated by different specialists. The assessment asks the questions that separate them.
- How long should lower back pain last before I get it checked?
- If there are no warning signs, most episodes improve over a few weeks. If yours is not trending better by then, is waking you at night, or is stopping you working, that is a reasonable point to be seen rather than waiting it out further.
Want to read through the possibilities instead of answering questions? The lower back pain differential guide compares the spinal causes side by side with the conditions that mimic them.
This symptom checker is general education, not medical advice, and it cannot diagnose you. It cannot account for your examination findings or your full history. Use it to prepare for an appointment with a qualified clinician, not to replace one. If you have any of the warning signs listed on this page, seek urgent care now.