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Chiropractic, the Drug-free Alternative for Low Back Pain

© Dr. David L. Phillips

This past summer, the American Chiropractic Association sponsored a study to try and determine what people were doing about their back pains. 800 adults were surveyed, all of whom were suffering from chronic low back pain at the time of the survey. This study was written up in the October 7th, 2004 edition of Dynamic Chiropractic, our profession's largest periodical.

To properly frame this study it's important to realize that 80% of people will have at least one incident of lower back pain sometime in their lives. The second most common reason to visit a doctor is back pain, and the cost of this so-called benign condition is over $90 billion dollars in the US alone; which is, evidently, about 1% of the gross domestic product. According to the article, lower back pain is the most common cause of disability in people under 45. With all these facts in mind, knowing what people do to try and help their pains and where chiropractic fits in is very relevant.

Some of the survey's findings were surprising. 85% of people surveyed had suffered from lower back pain for 3 years, 71% for 5 years or more, so you can readily see that we are not dealing with the general population here. The causes of pain listed by those surveyed ranged from an injury or accident (18%), degenerative disc disease (12.5%), herniated disc (10.3%), arthritis (10%) to "nothing" (2.6%).

For 65% of these people when their pain first began, their first treatment choice was medicine, their GP or family doctor. 18.8% chose to see a chiropractor. Of course, the most common form of treatment was drugs: 27% analgesics or narcotics, 25% OTC meds such as Tylenol or Advil, 19.6% used muscle relaxants and 18% took nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories. Many people actually took a combination of these drugs. 10.8% the 800 people surveyed used chiropractic to control their pain.

So, in spite of all these drugs, it would appear that most people found their treatments to be largely ineffective because 40% reported their back pains as "severe" or "very severe", while less than 31% felt that their pains were "under control" or "completely under control". Over 40% of those questioned said that their pains were "not under control" or "not under control at all". Sad isn't it? All those drugs, with their inherent and potentially lethal side-effects and such poor results; drugs for chronic lower back pain simply don't work that well.

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