Your spine is very important as it is central to your whole skeletal system; it also supports your head and encloses the spinal cord.

Your spine is made up of 33 individual bones called vertebrae which are classified into five regions.There is the cervical spine (7 cervical vertebrae in the neck region); the thoracic spine (12 thoracic vertebrae in the chest region); the lumbar spine (5 lumbar vertebrae in the lower back region); the sacral vertebrae or sacrum (there are 5 sacral vertebrae) and the coccygeal vertebrae or coccyx (which is also referred to as the tail bone).

Flat, soft (Invertebral) discs separate and cushion each vertebra from the next. Each disc absorbs the stress and shock incurred during your body's movement and prevents each vertebrae grinding against each other. Because the vertebrae are separate, the spine is flexible and can bend in many directions.

Facet joints are the joint structures that connect the vertebrae to one another and provide stability to the spinal movements.

Running down the centre of the spine from the base of the brain to the junction of the end of the thoracic spine is the spinal cord which is made up of millions of nerves. From the beginning of the lumbar spine, the nerves travel down inividually in what is described as the cauda equina, which is Latin for "the horses tail". The spinal cord is the  communication link between the brain and all the other parts of the body relaying messages about sensation and movement.