Posted on 11/09/2007 12:21:14 PM PST by Red Badger
Going to a chiropractor to treat back pain could be a waste of time, according to a new study which found that having your spine manipulated does nothing to speed up recovery. Current treatment guidelines for acute back pain recommend that, in the first instance, GPs advise patients to remain active and avoid bed rest and take paracetamol for the pain. If that does not work, patients are referred for spinal manipulative therapy and given non-steroidal anti-inflammatory (NSAID) drugs such as ibuprofen and diclofenac to treat the pain. Mark Hancock, of the back pain research group at the University of Sydney, studied 240 patients with short-term lower back pain who had already been given both advice and paracetamol. The patients were randomly allocated to four groups and given different treatments: NSAIDs with placebo manipulative therapy; manipulative therapy with placebo drugs; drugs with therapy; or double placebo. "Neither diclofenac nor spinal manipulative therapy gave clinically useful effects on the primary outcome of time to recovery," the researchers wrote in the Lancet today. "If patients have high rates of recovery with baseline care, and no clinically worthwhile benefit from the addition of diclofenac or spinal manipulative therapy, then GPs can manage patients confidently without exposing them to increased risks and costs associated with NSAIDs or spinal manipulative therapy." In an accompanying article in the Lancet, Bart Koes of Erasmus University medical centre in Rotterdam wrote: "The limited or absent beneficial effect of diclofenac for acute lower back pain after adequate first-line treatment may have wide implications. NSAIDs are widely prescribed for a range of acute musculoskeletal disorders. The important message is that the management of acute low back pain in primary care (advice and prescription of paracetamol) is sufficient for most patients."
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
FYI PING!!
Duh!
I know a doctor who swears by his chiropractor. He also thinks they are great for keeping people out of the real doctors’ office
Sounds like this was written by an MD. They hate chiropractors.
Some are charlatans, some are real healers. I’ve had good luck with a couple of them through the years.
Before they go there, who paid for the study?
Have mine!
My chiro”crack”ter broke one of my ribs a few weeks ago!
I kind of read from this article that they really did not do a good study on Chiropractic and back pain.
Title should read equally...
Chiropractors may be of GREAT USE in treating back pain.
In my wife’s case:
Chiropractors may be at fault in CAUSING back pain.
I'd go to my chiro 3 times a week if I could afford it. NOTHING makes my back feel better for 2 or 3 weeks at a time than having my guy crack me around.
Could be, in my opinion, only 20% of them know how to treat.
Same could be said for most professionals in health care I fear...
The "real healers" are the ones who have perfected the art of eliciting the placebo effect.The charlatans haven't.
How's that
Where do they get this crap? The whole article battles a strawman from the beginning; chiropractic deals with far more than ‘manipulating’ the back.
Whatever.
All I know is that my friends and family who use a chiropractor say they feel better for it. Isn’t that the point?
You can do the same thing with an office chair and save yourself a ton of money............Don’t ask me about GEICO..............
If there is such a thing as a ‘real’ doctor, the chiropractor has to be the closest thing to it.
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