General Health Information

NSAIDs, muscle relaxants or injection therapy are the pain relief treatments
used for patients with chronic back pain. If the initial choices are
ineffective, alternative pain relief medications should be offered to
the patients. First and foremost, assessment in patients for
psychological factors must be examined including depression disorders.
Fibromyalgia is thought to be a common cause of chronic back pain.
Patients should be referred to a physical therapist for warranted
exercises to help enhance their general condition. Furthermore to
correct any imbalance in their spine through stretching and flexion and
extension strengthening exercises.

To help relieve pain non-narcotic analgesics in the form of NSAIDs are
good in relieving pain, as they allow patients to be more mobile. In
patients suffering under acute pain, nonsteroidal drugs with a rapid
onset of action as well as with analgesic properties are very helpful.
In patients with palpable muscular spasm on physical examination or has
sleeping difficulty at night due to muscle pain, muscle relaxants may
be of help. To improve pain relief
in acute low back pain patients with known muscle spasm on their
physical examination, the combination of NSAID with a muscle relaxation
is very handful in soothing pain.

Patients that are experiencing back pain should be encouraged to limit
bed rest. To encourage movement is a major thrust of the guidelines and
this will help patient return to full function. The recommendations on
exercise, spinal manipulation, and best rest are considered to be
strategies to help motivate patients to be able to regain normal motion
of the spine. Doctors may recommend pain relief medications depending on the degree of the pain suffered by patients.