Low Back Pain Treatment: Study Shows Popping Pain Killers Is Not The Best Solution

There seems to be a pill for everything these days. We live in a convenient magic pill society where everything is solved by a tiny pill; it seems almost too good to be true. Well, sadly, it is, and many people are facing severe repercussions because of these “magic pills”, especially with regard to pain medications, or painkillers as we often refer to them. Lasting effects can be, but are not limited to, dependency, endless increases in dosages due to increased tolerance, liver damage, ulcers, decreased brain function, and this just names a few.

Whatever the type the pain, many people resort to using painkillers in order to alleviate the symptoms. On the surface, there is nothing wrong with getting rid of the pain. No one wants to live with discomfort. Pain is your body’s way of telling you that something is wrong. Pain is a warning sign. Millions of people experience pain at some point in their daily life; unfortunately, some even start and end their day in pain.

However, taking medication to cover up your pain often only masks the causes of the problem.

Ask yourself, wouldn’t it be better to find the true cause and treat it correctly? Of course you would. Here’s another way to look at pain. If your car’s “service engine soon” light came on, would you cover it up with duct tape? Of course not. Why, the service engine soon light is the car’s warning signal saying something’s not quite right with your engine. Ignoring the cause for the service engine soon light is at your car’s peril.

Health care practitioners have long debated over most effective for chronic lower back pain treatment.

A recent landmark study, published in the prestigious medical journal Spine, has put another nail in the coffin of this debate. For years the medical profession has demanded more evidence in the form of randomized controlled clinical trials demonstrating the effectiveness of chiropractic care for low back pain treatment. Well, the evidence is in and what chiropractic patients and chiropractic physicians alike have known for decades has been demonstrated!

Research Show Chiropractic Care Far Superior To Drugs For Low Back Pain Treatment

Randomized, Controlled Clinical Trial:
In the study published by Spine, 115 patients experiencing lower back pain for at least 13 weeks duration were randomly assigned to receive one of three interventions: medication, needle acupuncture or chiropractic manipulation.

Patients randomized to the acupuncture or spinal manipulation group were given an initial physical examination by the treating clinician to determine which form of acupuncture needle placement and needling would take place, or what type of spinal manipulation would be performed, respectively. Patients randomized to the medication group were given Celebrex, unless the patient had used it previously. The next drug of choice was Vioxx, followed by paracetamol (up to 4g/day). Doses were left to the physician’s discretion. Chiropractors administered “high-velocity, low-amplitude” manipulations. Chiropractic patients were given two treatments per week.

The patients were assessed four times: at the initial visit, and two, five and nine weeks after the initial treatment.

At the end of the study, the group receiving manipulation experienced a 300% increase in the number of patients fully recovered versus the acupuncture group and a 450% increase over the medication group.

Patient assessments regarding chronic lower back pain for the three groups also indicated superiority for chiropractic manipulation. This superiority is demonstrated in the percentage of improvement that patients in each of the three groups experienced as measured by the administered assessment tools.

Chiropractic Care Out Performs Drugs And Acupuncture For Low Back Pain Treatment

One of the study’s most remarkable findings was that patients in the chiropractic manipulation group reported a 47 percent improvement, compared to only 15 percent for the acupuncture group and 18 percent for the medication group.

“Considering that the patients in this study had experienced chronic spinal pain syndrome for an average of 4.5 years in the medication group, 6.4 years in the acupuncture group, and 8.3 years in the spinal manipulation group, it is notable that manipulation… achieved asymptomatic status for every fourth patient (27%). This result is superior to the percentages for acupuncture (9.4%) and medication (5%) for short-term outcomes… Medication apparently did not achieve a marked improvement in chronic spinal pain and caused adverse reactions in 6.1% of the patients.”

“In summary, the significance of the study is that for chronic spinal pain syndromes, it appears that spinal manipulation provided the best overall short-term results, despite the fact that the spinal manipulation group had experienced the longest pretreatment duration of pain.”

If you or someone you know is suffering with chronic lower back pain, ask a friend or family member for the name of their doctor of chiropractic and see if this proven method of low back pain treatment is right for you.