New Study Confirms – The First Thing Your Doctor Recommends for Back Pain Only Works As Well As Placebo

achingbackrodentAn extremely well-designed study, published today in The Lancet, confirms what those of us who work with back pain patients know all too well: taking Tylenol for acute back pain gives you something to do, but doesn’t help you get out of pain faster. At least not any faster than a placebo.

The study defined “recovery” from acute back pain as 7 consecutive days of pain at a “0” or “1” on the 0 – 10 scale. Patients who took Tylenol regularly took an average of 17 days to recover; it  also took 17 days for patients who took Tylenol as needed. It took patients who received a placebo 16 days, but don’t rub it in, that’s probably not statistically significant.

The authors said the study was done because Tylenol is usually the first thing suggested, but there was no research backing that recommendation. Now there is research and  “regular or as-needed dosing with paracetamol (Tylenol) does not affect recovery time compared with placebo in low-back pain.” The authors “question the universal endorsement of paracetamol in this patient group.”

One thought on “New Study Confirms – The First Thing Your Doctor Recommends for Back Pain Only Works As Well As Placebo

  1. Thank you for this post. I have been thinking this qsuteion over and over again. Where do those students that clearly feel better after lessons, disappear? I haven’t really thought about my own reasons to continue taking lessons, before I read this post. So thank you for that qsuteion, maybe it can give me some answers I didn’t have any pain or anything like that. I had breathing problems, but I didn’t think technique could help me with that. I think I liked the Technique because it brought me closer to myself. I was totally lost and stranger to myself that time. Of course I didn’t know that then, but it must have been the main reason, because I don’t remember any feelings of lengthening or easiness or anything physical sensations like that after lessons. I also liked the fact that I myself could do something for me. It wasn’t so much the Technique itself I was fascinated about. It was me getting to know me! I think that was the reason to take lessons.

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