The scan came back normal. No disc herniation, no significant degeneration, no obvious structural explanation for the pain you have been carrying for months or years. For many people this is a relief and a frustration in equal measure. The relief is that nothing serious is structurally wrong. The frustration is that without a cause, treatment has no clear target. What you need is a different framework for understanding the pain.

Why Normal Imaging Does Not Mean No Problem

MRI and CT scanning are exceptionally good at visualising the structural components of the spine: discs, vertebrae, facet joints, and the canal through which the spinal cord travels. They are less useful for detecting the neurological holding patterns in the surrounding soft tissue that can generate significant pain without any structural abnormality.

The muscles and connective tissue around the lumbar spine, when held in sustained contraction by the nervous system, exert compressive force on the local nerves and joints. They alter the biomechanics of the lumbar segment. They reduce the disc space slightly and load the facet joints unevenly. None of this necessarily shows on a scan, but it generates pain that is real, consistent, and debilitating.

This is one of the most common patterns in clinical practice: genuine, persistent low back pain in the presence of structurally normal imaging. It is not imagined. It is not psychosomatic in a dismissive sense. It is a physiological problem, but the physiology involved is neurological rather than structural.

Common Contributors to Non-Disc Low Back Pain

Prolonged sitting is one of the most significant contributors. The lumbar spine is loaded asymmetrically in a seated position, and the muscles required to stabilise it against that load fatigue over time. When fatigue is chronic, the nervous system compensates by increasing the baseline contraction of the surrounding muscles. This becomes stored tension over weeks and months of desk-based work.

Physical or emotional stress compounds this. The nervous system responds to overload of any kind by increasing muscular bracing throughout the body. The lower back, as one of the body’s primary postural anchors, accumulates tension particularly readily.

Previous injury is another common factor. Even when a historical back injury has healed at the structural level, the neurological holding pattern established around it at the time of injury may persist indefinitely.

How Body Stress Release Finds What Scans Miss

Body Stress Release does not rely on imaging to locate the source of pain. It uses the body’s own neurological responses to identify precisely where tension is stored in the soft tissue around the lumbar spine. Peter van Minnen assesses each level of the lumbar region and the surrounding musculature, mapping the pattern of stored tension before working systematically to release it.

This is why BSR can succeed where structural treatment has not. It is not addressing a different version of the same problem. It is addressing a different problem entirely, one that scans are not designed to detect and manual structural therapy cannot directly reach.

For those whose back pain is associated with desk-based work, our article on desk work and back pain provides context on why the lumbar spine is so commonly affected. The broader explanation for why this type of pain resists conventional treatment is covered in our article on why some back pain ignores conventional treatment.

If your low back pain has no disc explanation and conventional treatment has not resolved it, book a session with Peter van Minnen at Hever Health to explore what Body Stress Release can find.