Radicular Low Back Pain Chiropractic

Low back pain is one of the leading cause of disability globally (1) and with all our lifestyle stresses including sedentary work/activities, the situation does not appear to be improving. Do you or a loved one experience low back pain? This is an important article that can make the world of difference to you.
 
“About 4 million Australians (16% of population) have back problems, based on data from the National Health Survey, by the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2017-18”
 
Despite clinical practice guidelines discouraging the use of Benzodiaepine for low back pain, due to insufficient evidence supporting it’s efficacy, and the risk for serious adverse events, it is still being increasingly prescribed (2-4). More conservative approaches with non-pharmacological therapies are recommended as a first approach in line with current evidence based clinical guidelines (5), which includes chiropractic for low back pain.
 
In recent research literature, they looked at 18,412 patient records retrospectively with radicular low back pain, which is low back pain with nerve root involvement. They compared patients who have had chiropractic adjustment for their radicular low back pain (9,206 patients) and patients who didn’t (9,206 patients) in regards to receiving benzodiazepine prescription during follow up. It was found that patients who received chiropractic adjustment for radicular low back pain is associated with reduced odds of receiving a benzodiazepine prescription during follow up (6). Though more data would be beneficial to further substantiate these findings, these preliminary results suggest that chiropractic adjustments would be helpful as a conservative option for radicular low back pain management.
 
So if you want to find out if chiropractic care may help manage low back pain for you or your loved ones, have a chat with one of our chiropractors to see how they can assist.
 
“It’s better to get onto a problem earlier than allowing it to progress and become more complicated to deal with”
 
 
 
 
1.Vos T, Barber RM, Bell B, Bertozzi-Villa A, Biryukov S, Bolliger I, Charlson F. Global, regional, and national incidence, prevalence, and years lived with disability for 301 acute and chronic diseases and injuries in 188 countries, 1990–2013: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013. Lancet. 2015;9995:743-800.
2. Qaseem A, Wilt TJ, McLean RM, et al. Noninvasive treatments for acute, subacute, and chronic low back pain: a clinical practice guideline from the American College of physicians. Ann Intern Med 2017;166:514–30.
3.Brandt J, Leong C, Benzodiazepines LC. Benzodiazepines and Z- Drugs: an updated review of major adverse outcomes reported on in epidemiologic research. Drugs R D 2017;17:493–507.
4.Pangarkar SS, Kang DG, Sandbrink F, et al. VA/DoD clinical practice guideline: diagnosis and treatment of low back pain. J Gen Intern Med 2019;34:2620–9.
5. Qaseem A, Wilt TJ, McLean RM, Forciea MA. Noninvasive treatments for acute, subacute, and chronic low back pain: a clinical practice guideline from the American College of Physicians. Ann Intern Med. 2017;166:514–30.
6. Trager, R.J., Cupler, Z.A., DeLano, K.J., Perez, J.A. and Dusek, J.A., 2022. Association between chiropractic spinal manipulative therapy and benzodiazepine prescription in patients with radicular low back pain: a retrospective cohort study using real-world data from the USA. BMJ open, 12(6), p.e058769.