The most common cause of back pain concern changes due to overload on the spine, which occur with the development of disc herniation. Usually, the changes involve the lumbar spine, the mobility of which is the greatest, and do not cause diagnostic difficulties. Symptoms reported by patients seem to be so common that a diagnosis may be made based on physical examination. Also, the frequency of occurrence of discopathy is so high that mistakes happen relatively rarely. The implementation of conservative treatment should relieve suffering and improve the patient’s state of health; if such management does not bring about the desired outcomes, the possibility of pain of etiology other than discopathy should be considered. For this purpose, it is necessary to perform a thorough physical examination; however, when the symptoms are non-characteristic it is justifiable to expand diagnostics by imaging tests. One of the possible causes of symptoms similar to discopathy is urolithiasis. The objective of the presented study is to draw attention to the necessity for up-dating knowledge concerning differentiation of pain occurring in the lumbar region. key words: sciatica, back pain, urolithiasis