Back Pain Psychology

Posted by: Curt | Under: 40's/fit, 50's/fit, General Fitness, Health, Ladies/fit, Prime/fit, Seniors/fit, Sports, Travel/fit, Youth/fit | (0) Comments

As a chronic back pain sufferer, I often wonder how much is physical and how much is psychological. Mine is related to a specific injury and is pretty well controlled with exercise, stretching, and anti-inflammatories. But, there is a lot of evidence that typical treatments are not effective for most people, and now, there is growing evidence that psychological treatments are far more effective. Check out the article over at MSN Health for all the details. It is long, but very much worth reading. Fascinating stuff.
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The conventional medical treatment for back pain follows a predictable script. After the patient is interviewed and given a physical exam, he or she undergoes a series of diagnostic tests. This normally includes x-rays, CT scans, and MRIs. The end result is an astonishing array of detailed anatomical pictures. Doctors no longer need to imagine the layers of tissue underneath the skin. Now they can see everything.

Unfortunately, all this seeing has limited results. After undergoing the full range of diagnostic tests, 85 percent of patients suffering from lower-back pain still don’t receive a precise diagnosis. The pain can’t be pinpointed; there are just too many moving parts. Instead, their suffering is parceled into a vague category, such as lumbar strain or spinal instability. But even when a patient is given a specific structural diagnosis, it’s not clear how meaningful the diagnosis actually is. Look, for example, at herniated disks, one of the most common “causes” of back pain. A 1994 study published in The New England Journal of Medicine imaged the spinal regions of 98 people with no back pain or back-related problems. The pictures were then sent to doctors who didn’t know that the patients were not in pain. The end result was disturbing: Eighty percent of the pain-free patients exhibited “serious problems” such as bulging, protruding, or herniated disks. In 38 percent of patients, the MRIs revealed multiple damaged disks. The disconnect between “disk degeneration” and back pain increases with age: More than 80 percent of people over the age of 60 who don’t have any back pain still demonstrate significant disk degeneration. These structural spinal abnormalities are often used to justify expensive treatments like surgery, and yet nobody would advocate surgery for people without pain. In the latest clinical guidelines issued by the American College of Physicians and the American Pain Society, doctors were strongly recommended not to “obtain imaging or other diagnostic tests in patients with nonspecific low back pain.” In too many cases, the expensive tests proved worse than useless.

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Chances are that you know someone with chronic back pain- so pass the article on to them