According to WebMD up to 80% of Americans will exprience low back pain some time in their lives, and low back pain is the leading cause of disability.
Low back pain can be caused by any number of factors- overuse or repetitive injury, poor posture, weak musculature, kidney issues, disk degeneration, arthritis, or other diseases.
Low back pain can be constant and chronic or come and go. Low back pain can interfere with sleep, it can take away from our enjoyment of life by preventing us from being able to comfortably sit, stand, walk, or move how we want to.
Conventional care for low back pain usually entails prescription pain killers and/or muscle relaxers, or procedures such as cortisone injection, nerve ablation, or surgery.
There is also often referral to physical therapy which can include prescribed exercises, stretches and manual therapies.
If and when these therapies or procedures do not help the pain, only provide temporary relief, or cause unwanted side-effects there is the option of acupuncure for low back pain.
A new study from the National Insititue of Health shows that acupuncture is effective for chronic low back pain in older adults.
According to the study, “older Americans with chronic low back pain who received acupuncture had greater improvement in physical function and reduced pain than those who received usual medical care only, generally prescribed medications or physical therapy.”
Acupuncture has several advantages over the usual care:
1. Acupuncture utilizes the body’s own natural ability to heal by promoting reduction of inflammation, increase of circulation, and reducing the brains’s pain response.
2. Acupuncture can address myofascial pain by treating trigger points and areas of tension.
3. Acupuncture can reduce sympathetic nervous system response to help with the stress around pain.
4. Acupuncture can help with low back pain that radiates down the leg (sciatica) or around into the groin or up into the shoulder by addressing how the body works together as a whole.
5. Acupuncture will not cause the side effects of medication such as drowsiness, nausea, or addiction to the medication.
6. Acupuncture is not trying to remove or alter the body as ablations and surgery do.
7. There is no danger to long-term use of acupuncture as there is with cortisone injections.
The best part- acupuncture helps the body-mind connection, and in this study, not only did the group receiving acupuncture have less low back pain, they also had less anxiety than the control group.
“At the six-month and 12-month assessment, both groups who received acupuncture had greater reductions in pain disability than those who received usual medical care alone. The acupuncture-treated groups also had reduced pain intensity and greater physical function after six months as compared to participants who did not receive acupuncture. The researchers also reported that acupuncture treatment was associated with fewer anxiety symptoms as compared to usual medical care alone at the six and 12-month assessments.”