At any given time, thirteen percent of the adult population in the United States suffers from chronic low back pain, and throughout the industrialized world, an estimated seven out of ten adults will report some form of low back pain – either acute or chronic – in their life.
Doctors commonly prescribe pain medications and physical therapy for low back pain; if the pain is severe and doesn’t respond to these more conservative measures, they may recommend steroid injection or even surgery. If you suffer from low back pain – especially chronic pain – you may be familiar with these kinds of treatments. Many people are in the same position and are looking for treatment that provides significant, long-lasting relief with fewer side-effects.
While acupuncture has been used for thousands of years, its effectiveness in treating low back pain – especially chronic low back pain – is being recognized in the Western medical community as its popularity is increasing among the general population.
In recent years, doctors have been more willing than in the past to refer their patients for acupuncture as an adjunct – or even an alternative – to standard therapy. The increasing number of studies demonstrating the effectiveness of acupuncture for low back pain as well as the need to find alternatives to addictive pain medications is a big reason for this. The other reason is the sheer number of patients who have sought out acupuncture on their own and reported to their doctors how much it has relieved their low back pain.
Recently, Medicare began covering acupuncture to treat chronic low back pain, largely in an effort to curb the prescription of and reliance on opiates to treat the condition.
This appears to have significant impact on patients’ levels of pain and overall well being: according to a study reported on by AARP, 60% of patients who received acupuncture for low back pain reported an improvement in their pain, whereas only 39% of people treated with the standard course of care (without acupuncture) reported an improvement.
The researchers concluded that “acupuncture was more effective than usual care alone for helping people with chronic low back pain feel less bothered by their symptoms and function better in their daily activities.”
Another study by Liu et al. reports, “… acupuncture, either used in isolation or as an adjunct to other interventions, has been demonstrated as an effective clinical option for patients with chronic [low back pain] LBP and should be advocated in routine clinical practice.”
A 2017 meta-analysis published in the journal Pain provides evidence of the long-term benefits from acupuncture for chronic pain, including back pain. The authors stated that the “major clinical implication of our findings is that we can reassure chronic pain patients considering acupuncture that any treatment benefit does persist after the end of treatment.”
In addition to decreased pain and increased mobility, patients treated with acupuncture for back pain often report improvements in mood, sleep, and energy levels after treatment.
Whether your back pain is the result of an injury – such as a work injury, a motor vehicle accident injury, or a sports injury – or just a chronic, nagging issue whose cause you can’t pinpoint – acupuncture, electroacupuncture, other modalities of Chinese medicine, and lifestyle recommendations can offer relief from chronic and acute back pain without the side effects of pain medications.
Feel free to schedule an appointment with me at my online booking site. I want to help you find long-lasting relief from your low back pain and get you back doing the activities you love, pain-free.
