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Lumbar Radicular and Referred Pain in the Athlete

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Nerve and Vascular Injuries in Sports Medicine

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Often numbness and tingling in athletes results from radicular or referred pain from the spine. Low back pain conditions are extremely common in athletes. Most spinal disorders cause axial low back pain, such as pain generated from facet and sacroiliac joints, muscles, and the disc itself. These structures may also cause somatic referred pain into the legs, usually above the knee. Somatic referred pain is typically described as a vague, dull pain in the leg, yet it can be confused with nerve-generated paresthesias. Radicular pain, on the other hand, is less common and is characterized by numbness and tingling that follows a particular dermatome. Radicular pain is exacerbated with dural tension maneuvers, such as straight-leg raising (SLR), seated slump test, and femoral nerve stretch test (FNST). Making the distinction between radicular and referred entities is important when initiating proper treatment. In sports, the following spinal conditions are seen with more frequency:

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Resident Physician in Orthopaedic Surgery, Department of Orthopaedics, University of Colorado, Aurora, CO, USA

    Jonathan T. Bravman, Hector Mejia, Vikas V. Patel & Venu Akuthota

  2. The Spine Center, Denver, CO, USA

    Venu Akuthota

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    Bravman, J.T., Mejia, H., Patel, V.V., Akuthota, V. (2009). Lumbar Radicular and Referred Pain in the Athlete. In: Herring, S., Akuthota, V. (eds) Nerve and Vascular Injuries in Sports Medicine. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-76600-3_12

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    • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-76600-3_12

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