Lower Back Pain and Chiropractic

sciatica - Purity Chiropractic - Peregian Beach

Lower Back Pain is the leading cause of disability in the Western World. Sciatica is one of the most common terms known associated with Lower Back Pain. Compared to most medical treatments, few interventions can initiate back pain relief and healing like chiropractic adjustments can.

What to Make it Clear

There is a very important concept to understand when it comes to chiropractic and showing its benefits via research. It is critical to know that chiropractic does not treat anything. That may sound like a very strange statement to some. I am showing research displaying how chiropractic care helps Lower Back Pain but in chiropractic, we are not treating someone for back pain. The body is always the one that does the healing not the doctor.
This is one of the main issues when it comes to research. In research, you have to isolate a specific intent or outcome you are wanting to study. Our bodies do not work in isolation though. This is why the so-called ‘highest level of research’ is useless for wellness research. This is also why most people believe chiropractic is for neck and back pain. Due to pain being an easy thing to do research on.  

The Research

The European Spine Journal published findings from a clinical trial uncovering how chiropractic adjustments resulted in a 72 percent success rate in treating sciatica-related symptoms. This can be compared to a 20 percent success rate from treatment with physical therapy, and a 50 percent success rate from corticosteroid injections.
Another randomized, double-blind trial published in the Spine Journal comparing active versus simulated chiropractic manipulations on patients with sciatic nerve pain who were residing in rehabilitation medical centers found that active manipulations had more effect than simulated manipulations. Active manipulations reduced the number of days patients experienced moderate or severe back pain and other sciatica symptoms, and also caused no reported adverse effects. (2)

Low Back Pain and Neck Pain

One study involving chiropractic patients with neck pain found that 96 percent of respondents indicated that they were either “Very satisfied” or “Satisfied” with the chiropractic care they received and that 98 percent said that they “Definitely would” or were “Very likely” to choose chiropractic care again if they experienced a similar problem. (3)

In a 2003 study published in the British Medical Journal, 183 patients with neck pain were randomly allocated to receive either manual therapy (spinal mobilization), physiotherapy (mainly exercise) or general practitioner care (counseling, education, and drugs) over the course of a 52-week period. The clinical outcome measures showed that chiropractic adjustments resulted in faster recovery than physiotherapy and general practitioner care. Moreover, total costs of the chiropractic-treated patients were about one-third of the costs of physiotherapy or general practitioner care. (4)

More Research

Another study published in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics found patients with chronic low-back pain treated by chiropractors showed greater improvement and satisfaction one month following treatment compared to patients treated by family physicians.

Satisfaction scores were higher for chiropractic patients, as a higher proportion of chiropractic patients (56 percent vs. 13 percent in the physician group) reported that their low-back pain was better or much better. Nearly one-third of medical patients reported their low-back pain was actually worse or much worse following treatment. Other studies have shown similar results. The majority of acute and chronic chiropractic patients experience better outcomes in pain, functional disability and patient satisfaction following treatment. (5)

Comparing Different Approaches

In a study funded by NIH’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, conducted to test the effectiveness of different approaches for treating neck pain.  272 participants were divided into three groups. Those that received either spinal manipulative therapy from a doctor of chiropractic (DC), those who received pain medications (over-the-counter pain relievers, narcotics and muscle relaxants), and those only following at-home exercise recommendations.

After 12 weeks, about 57 percent of those who met with DCs, and about 48 percent of those who exercised, reported at least a 75 percent reduction in pain. As a comparison, 33 percent of the people in the medication group reported decreased pain. After one year, approximately 53 percent of the two drug-free groups (chiropractic and exercise) continued to report at least a 75 percent reduction in pain, compared to an average of just 38 percent pain reduction among those who only took medication. (6)