I’ve minor back pain off and on for several years. Usually after taking ibuprofen for a couple of days, it would go away for then, no problems. This time, however, the pain is much more severe than it ever was, and it’s not going away. Oh, sure, it goes away for 4-6 hours after taking an NSAID, such as ibuprofen, but then comes right back. I don’t want to just keep taking ibu and take a chance on messing up my stomach. I want to see a doctor.
I’m hesitant to see my PCP for back pain because he’s a DO, and he practices alternative medicine as well as traditional. When I’ve seen him in the past for back pain, he does a manipulation. This may or may not succeed in temporarily alleviating my pain, and always succeeds in getting my makeup all over his shirt and in lightening my wallet for a copay. I don’t want to be twisted around, and I don’t want to be told to take the bark of some tree that grows in Zimbabwe or some such thing that will cost me $37 at the health food store- I want my back fixed. Permanently. For all other medical needs, I love my doctor.
My insurance is not an HMO, so I’m free to pick a specialist and go. What would be the best choice- an orthopedist? Have you had any experience with back pain?
Unfortunately, modern allopathic medicine is also fairly unsuccessful at treating lower-back pain.
That said, my personal advice would be to seek out a second family physician. Feel free to explain your situation with your first primary medical provider and the reasons which you felt compelled to seek advice elsewhere.
I would be cautious about contacting a specialist such as an orthopedist directly. It’s a, “when all you have is a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail,” sort of a problem. The clinical evidence in support of surgical interventions for idiopathic (unknown cause) lower back pain is muddled to say the least. Theoretically, orthopedists would only decide to operate for low back pain when the medical literature supported such a decision, but we do not live in a perfect world.
I have back pain due to spinal arthritis. It was diagnosed by an orthopedic doctor. He took xrays and did some other tests to be sure of the cause, ruling out things like a tumor.
In my case it is not, and never will be, totally and permanently cured, unless someone invents a way of providing a replacement spine. What has helped are exercises taught to me by the physical therapist that the orthopedist sent me to. Most days I am pretty much pain free.
I hope you can eventually find out what’s causing your pain, and that it will be something that can at least be ameliorated.
ETA – my orthopedist never even made the slightest suggestion of surgery. What I’ve read on the subject confirms that it would have been grossly inappropriate for me.
I either go to my DO or a chiropractor. However, I found a unique way of stretching my back that works surprisingly well.
I have one of those total gym 2000 units with a sliding platform. I put it on the lowest setting and hook my feet to the top of it with a strap and then lay on the platform. To augment the back stretching I push the platform up and down to gently tug on it. This works better than any equipment my DO or Chiropractor has for stretching the back. 5 minutes of stretching does wonders for me.
You can buy those gym’s all day long used. Nobody wants them.
After a lifetime of going to my PCP or Gyno for everything, it seems weird to just go to an orthopedist and get a diagnosis, but apparently I can do that. I’m well aware of the dismal success rates of back surgery, but they’re making advances all the time, right? That would be my last choice, though.
It seems like the beginnings of a great big hassle… sigh. But I do at least want to get a diagnosis and some treatment options. Orthopedist it is.
I have tried stretching, but that only helps at some times and for only so long.
Not surgical advances for low back pain of a musculo-skeletal nature, like 95% of the low back pain out there.
Threemae makes a good point. And IAAD.
Good luck!
QtM, musculo-skeletal LBP sufferer.
(I exercise,use massage, stretching, relaxation techniques, & the occasional dose of naproxen, a medication similar to ibuprofen)
A colleague of mine swears by John Sarno, a backpain specialist (with a clinic in lower Manhattan) who has written several books on eliminating back pain. Unhappily for me, his treatment involves treating back pain as primarily a psychological probem, which my mind can’t get around, but as I say, my colleague thinks the guy is a world-class genius, and says Sarno’s methods have saved him from weeks and months of lower-back pain.
Good luck, Alice. My back has been killing me all week (and I scheduled a seven hour drive wiht the kids last Friday, with my back aching like no tomorrow) so I can only sympathize (and take massive doses of ibuprofin, aspirin, hot baths, massages, stretching…)
My husband is a physical therapist and sees tons of people for chronic back pain. Usually, they’ve been to their primary physician or an orthopedist and gotten a referral. From what he’s told me, he tries to alleviate some of the pain with massage, traction, etc., then gives people exercises that they can do at home. He is a stickler about posture and strengthening your core muscles, and that’s generally what he tells me to work on when my lower back is bothering me.
My problem wasn’t lower back pain, but I’ve had excellent experiences going directly to a physical therapist and bypassing the doctor. I don’t know how it is where you live but here the PTs will treat you with or without a physician’s referral, although if they really think you should see a doctor, they’ll say so. Honestly, I would try that.
It can be, but if there is nerve root compression in the cervical spine, this is one area that tends to respond better to injections or even disc decompression surgery than does the low back.
If it’s neck pain due to cervical degeneration, then exercises, therapy, relaxation, and so forth tend to be better options as a whole.
Here in NJ (a real place, not a political statement), PTs cannot treat you without a doctor’s prescription, which must be for a specific type and duration. At least that’s what the ones I’ve been to told me.
The core muscle strenthening is the key, plus the appropriate stretching out. A good PT is a godsend. Mine showed me exercises and so on that I would never have thought of and which actually worked, although it took a long time with serious dedication and follow-through to get the results.
I also got some valuable PT treatment for neck (actually upper back, 1st & 2nd thoracic vertebrae) pain after a car accident that cracked the bones there. The hands-on treatement was fantastic, stretching out and uncramping the muscles.
