Tag: back pain
Questions and Answers about Chiropractic: The Bottom Line
I am often asked, “What do chiropractors do?” That’s not an easy question to answer. The answer is usually expected to be, “They treat back trouble.” But as alternative medicine practitioners, chiropractors do a lot of things, and they treat a variety of ailments, based largely on a scientifically-invalid vertebral subluxation theory which proposes that nerve interference resulting from a misaligned vertebra...
Chiropractic: A Summary of Concerns
Although obscured by controversy, there is evidence to indicate that spinal manipulation can be as effective as conventional treatment methods in relieving low-back pain.1,2,3,4 This grain of truth mixed with chiropractic vertebral subluxation theory that encompasses a broad scope of ailments makes it difficult for the average person to distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate use of manipulation by chiropractors. A person who...
Antibiotics for Low Back Pain
Low back pain is a particularly frustrating condition that is common, poorly understood, and difficult to treat. Could a long course of antibiotics be the answer for some patients? A recent study from Denmark suggests that it might be: “Antibiotic treatment in patients with chronic low back pain and vertebral bone edema (Modic type 1 changes): a double-blind randomized clinical controlled trial...
Glucosamine: The Unsinkable Rubber Duck
Glucosamine is widely used for osteoarthritis pain. It is not as impossible as homeopathy, but its rationale is improbable. As I explained in a previous post, Wallace Sampson, one of the other authors of this blog, has pointed out that the amount of glucosamine in the typical supplement dose is on the order of 1/1000th to 1/10,000th of the available glucosamine in...
Brief Note: Followup on Spinal Decompression Machines
In September 2008 I wrote a post on Misleading Ads for Back Pain Treatment. with particular attention to the bogus claims for the DRX 9000. The Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) show “Marketplace” has just done a scathing exposé of so-called nonsurgical spinal decompression treatment with machines like the DRX 9000 and of some of the unscrupulous practitioners who offer it. Between the hidden...
Misleading Ads for Back Pain Treatment
There was a full-page ad in my local paper today for Back in Action Spine and Health Centers, targeted at sufferers from almost any kind of chronic back pain. It started with “Are You Ready to Throw in the Towel and Just Live with Hurting So Bad?” It went on to make a number of claims: Doctors can fix the problem. Breakthrough...