Early labour vs false labour

Can anyone tell me the difference between the 2? Am in absolute agony and I don’t wanna call up and go in for them to tell me it’s not real labour, but having really bad back ache and contractions stretching round the front, haven’t tried timing them but they are regular enough that I probably could, had this last night about 1 in the morning but it went away by the time I woke up, and started again about 4 in the afternoon, beginning mild and slowly getting stronger now to the point that they’re almost taking my breath away, been having mild contractions for about 5 days now and seem to be loosing my plug slowly also, could this be it???