How do i know if lower back pain is associated with possible degenerative disc?

MRI: The only way to know for sure if the lower back is partially caused by degeneration of your discs is imaging. X rays, ct's, and mris are all possible imaging modalities . Mri's present the most information.

Difficult sometimes: Disc degeneration is so common that it often difficult to determine if a particular disc is causeing symptoms. There are many people walking around with disc degeneration who have no low back pain at all. Mri findings correlate poorly to symptoms in many cases. Some doctors will do an injection of the disc (discogram) to see if it is painful but this is a very controversial test.