Women Often Suffer from Worse Back Issues than Men

Aches and pains come with aging, but back pain can really be debilitating—especially for women.

There are certain back conditions that women are more prone to experience than men.

Lynda Lovette's pain was so debilitating, she couldn’t sleep. 

All it took was one moment—a twist, a turn—and something felt off.

“It was the day after it snowed, and I was literally out in my driveway shoveling snow, which I don’t mind doing. And when I got finished, I’m like, ‘Oh, I did pretty good for a 62-year-old shoveling snow,’ and I felt really good,” Lovette said.

That was in February 2024, but then, Lovette said, she slowly started to feel some pain.

“There were nights that I was crying. I was sitting up in bed, literally crying because the pain went from the right shoulder all the way down to literally these two fingers, the tips of my fingers. And then, some of it would go down through my thigh. But the worst part was my arm. It… constantly felt like knives were in my arm,” Lovette explained.

Lovette ended up visiting Maksim “Max” Shlykov, M.D., M.S., a fellowship-trained orthopedic spine surgeon with The Maryland Spine Center, part of The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital at Mercy.

“She was complaining of arm pain and also some loss of balance and loss of hand coordination,” Dr. Shlykov said.

It turned out Lovette had cervical radiculopathy (a pinching of the nerves) and cervical myelopathy (the pinching of the spinal cord). So, together, they decided on surgery in October 2024.

“For the neck, for the issue that Linda had, which was pressure on the nerves and the spinal cord, there are two main [surgical] options: one is a procedure from the front of the neck and one from the back,” Dr. Shlykov said.

There is no noticeable trace of the surgery on Lovette physically, but overall, she said the surgery has really changed her life.

“In June, I went on an Alaskan cruise, [for] which I had to do a lot of walking. I enjoyed that thoroughly,” Lovette said. “I have a new grandson, so I'm able to play with him. I mean, before the surgery, it would have been unheard of.”

Shlykov noted that some other back-related conditions women are more prone to than men can include:

• Piriformis syndrome: a large muscle in the lower back that spasms
• Spinal osteoarthritis: wear and tear in the joints that connect the vertebrae
• Coccydynia: pain in the tailbone

View Mercy spinal surgeon Dr. Maksim Shlykov’s interview regarding women and back pain conditions.