When you develop a new pain in your back or you overdo it with exercise and experience some swelling or soreness, you may opt to take an over-the-counter anti-inflammatory medication. This is considered fairly standard practice, but new research suggests that this may not be the best way to care for your discomfort. In fact, it may actually lead to an increased likelihood of chronic back pain.
Back Pain And Anti-Inflammatory Medications
For the study, researchers relied on patient observations, an animal study and an analysis of patients in a large database to get a better understanding of how the body reacts and recovers from pain. The major takeaway from the study was that in patients who suffered a back injury, those whose pain eventually went away experienced a period of rapid and intense inflammation, which then faded over the next three months. In patients whose pain persisted, they did not experience a similar inflammatory reaction.
The theory is that an inflammatory response from your body is part of the healing process that needs to occur in order for total healing to take place. When this inflammation is combated by anti-inflammatory medications, the process can be thrown out of whack, and eventually chronic pain can develop because the body wasn’t able to do what it needed to in order to fully resolve the problem.
Obviously this is in contradiction with what we consider standard practice, and many are quick to suggest that more quality research involving clinical trials and placebos needs to take place. So while we’ll wait for more evidence to come out to support or discredit this theory, we’ve already explained that overreliance on over-the-counter anti-inflammatories and pain medications for back pain isn’t the best way to treat your discomfort. These are considered passive treatments, and oftentimes they help to mask the symptoms instead of treating the underlying condition.
These medications can still play a crucial role in helping you overcome a back injury, but they shouldn’t be your main method of care. Instead, jump into some more active treatments, like physical therapy, controlled exercise and gentle stretching. These techniques will help you get stronger, stabilize the injury site and help you regain more physical function. If these active treatments are too uncomfortable to pursue on their own, pain medications and anti-inflammatories can be helpful in easing discomfort so that you can complete these activities, but try to avoid medication as a stand-alone option.
If you are dealing with a back injury and are wondering how you can effectively treat it, your best bet is to connect with a spine specialist like Dr. Sinicropi who can see your back in person and provide some individualized advice. After a physical exam and some diagnostic imaging tests, we’re confident that we can figure out what’s causing your pain and develop some personalized strategies for overcoming it. For more information, or for help with your spine pain, give Dr. Sinicropi and his team a call today at (651) 430-3800.
