There are many treatment options for back pain. Some are better than others. They include:
• Bed rest: This treatment continues to exert pressure on the discs and grossly slows or prevents the healing process.
• Medications: Some drugs lead to prolonged use and they tend to cover up the underlying problem with a wide variety of damaging side effects.
• Chiropractic / Physical Therapy: Effective up to a point; effectiveness begins to diminish as the degree of disc damage and degeneration increases.
• Epidural Injections: Invasive and in most cases, results are only temporary, lasting from a few days to a few months.
• Surgery: A Johns Hopkins white paper states that surgery "is not the treatment of choice for most people with back pain" (White Paper on Low Back Pain and Osteoporosis by John P. Kostulk, M.D. and Simeon Margolis, M.D., PhD, 2002). The report goes on to say, "Fewer than 5% of people with back pain are good candidates for surgery." Although there have been advancements in spinal surgery, outcomes can be unpredictable. Failed-back surgery/post-operative pain syndrome is a troubling reality from surgical intervention. Less than 1 out of 4 disc surgeries remain successful five years later, and there is increased risk that additional surgery will be needed (17-20%).
