San Francisco Chiropractor Comments:
I just read an interesting article on www.medicalnewstoday.com entitled:
Four Out Of 10 Back Pain Sufferers Will Recover Within A Year
Here is an excerpt from the article:
The participants were drawn from a larger group of 973 patients who attended primary care clinics in Sydney with a new episode of low back pain. These patients had visited their health care provider with acute low back pain (ie. the episode had lasted for more than 24 hours but less than two weeks). Patients with serious spinal health problems such as cancer, infection, fractures or inflammatory arthritis were excluded from the study. Those who had not recovered by 90 days were considered to have chronic non-specific low back pain and joined the current study.
The researchers followed up 400 patients with chronic non-specific low back pain with a telephone interview assessing pain and disability levels and work status nine and 12 months later. The results reveal that a reasonable number of participants had complete recovery within a year of first developing chronic low back pain (35% by nine months, 41% by one year).
In conclusion, Dr Menezes Costa says that this study is important as it demonstrates that the rate of recovery from chronic low back pain is higher than previously reported and that the findings suggest that the prognosis is not uniformly poor for patients with chronic low back pain.
My Take: This seems about right. Dr. BJ Palmer the discoverer of chiropractic used to say you could hit some back pain patients in the butt with a shovel and they would get better. But when you consider that over 80% of the population will have a serious bout of back pain at some point in their lives...and the #1 factor that predisposes one to chronic back pain (pain that lasts over 90 days) is previous back pain...that still leaves a huge amount of back pain sufferers that will become chronic...some disabled.
And..just because a back pain patient feels good nine and 12 months later does not mean they do not have an underlying spinal problem that will rear it's ugly head again down the road. So...like many studies, we are looking at partial information which makes it hard to draw any kind of useful conclusions as far as treatment is concerned. Personally, I would rather concern myself with keeping my spine in alignment with routine chiropractic care, my body weight normal, my diet clean, and my muscles nice and strong. It just seems like the rest takes care of itself when I do.
So sure...many cases of chronic back pain self resolve...but what else is new? I'm sure it boils down to the same old stuff when it's all said and done...Those back pain patients that take better care of themselves and maintain a healthy lifestyle, recover quicker and become less chronic. This is not unique to back pain either...it's across the board. And...you are the one in charge. So take care of business by eating right, exercising, getting plenty of rest and relaxation...and regular chiropractic check-ups. And enjoy the research for what it is...partial information.
Dr. Eben Davis is clinic director of Executive Express Chiropractic at the San Francisco Embarcadero Center. To schedule an appointment call 415-392-2225.
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