The very medication one takes for lower back pain can eventually exacerbate the problem, according to one new small canadian scientific study. Research has concluded that short-term but regular use of steroids and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, such as dexamethasone, ibuprofen and diclofenac, can actually make chronic low back pain.
However, confirmation from other larger clinical studies that this is indeed the case will be needed. Some other experts were skeptical about the new study, which was not a randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial, but merely a patient observation study, combined with an animal study.
Researchers, led by Professor McGill University Professor Lunda Diachenko, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, according to the New York Times and the British Guardian, studied 98 people for three months with back pain.
The problem of lower back pain is one of the most common in the world, with approx four out of five people feel it at some point in their lives without the cause being always clear. People with low back pain should first try non-pharmacological treatments such as exercise, physical therapy or massage and only if the pain persists should they be avoided.
Because opioid analgesics are addictive, doctors often prescribe anti-inflammatory drugs, arguing that the pain may be exacerbated by inflammation. However, the trend of using Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) against back pain persists even though according to the researchers it does not seem to be much better than placebo in terms of effectiveness, at least in terms of this problem in the waist.
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