Chronic low-back pain is the most expensive cause of pain and disability in working age adults. In the drug keen US of A in the eight years from 1997 - 2005 there was a 65% increase in spine care costs, with the biggest increase being in drugs which rose to a vast $19.8 billion - or an increase of 188%. In 2005 the total health bill for spine problems was over $85.9 billion or 9% of the total national US expenditure on health - only heart disease and stroke were more costly. However, at the same time as this increase in expenditure occurred the health status of the patients got worse with 1 in 4 patients with chronic low-back pain reporting physical limitations.
It is also pretty badly handled by the NHS, with the rush to surgery being far too fast and little to fill the gap between a fist full of pain-masking pills and a knife in your spine.
The great journal 'The Spine Journal' (Focus Issue on Chronic Low-back pain - 2008) suggested that "a reasonable approach to CLBP would include education strategies, simple analgesics, a brief course of manual therapy in the form of spinal manipulation, mobilization or massage, and possibly acupuncture". All of this is provided by skilled practitioners in the clinic, C1 Chiropractic Health Centre.
The report also and adds, damningly, about the allopathic medicine providers: "there is clearly no consensus that commonly used diagnostic tests hold any value in the decision-making process before offering a treatment for CLBP" and this "brings into question the routine use of laboratory testing, x-rays, CT, MRI, discography, nerve conduction velocity and electromyography".
All this is available on www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/15299430 - vol 8 issue 1.
So, who’s got the answers – clearly not the medics but I’d suggest the spinal health experts such as those at the clinic.
