for example, 342 people with chronic
lower-back pain were randomly
divided into three groups. Patients
in one group got “usual care”—
whatever treatment and advice their
individual doctors provided. Along
with receiving any medical care
needed, a second group practiced
mindfulness meditation and yoga
and the third went to CBT classes
for eight weeks. About 44 percent
of people in both the meditation
and the CBT groups had significant
pain improvement after six months,
compared with just 26 percent of the
“usual care” group.
“Mind-body therapies and physi-
cal therapy are often as effective as or
more effective than surgeries and in-
jections, despite seeming less ‘medi-
cal,’” says Dr. Jimenez. “They’re also
safer.”
They’re not recommended in every
case, of course. Some pain does re-
quire more invasive, and immediate,
treatment. If your back pain comes
with bowel or bladder problems, or
if you have progressive muscle weak-
ness in your legs—for instance, if your
knees keep giving out or you keep
tripping—call your doctor right away
or go to the emergency room.
“If the pain radiates down your
leg or causes numbness and tingling
in your leg or foot, see your doctor.
It could be a compressed nerve root
that needs attention,” says back pain
researcher Anthony Delitto, PhD,
PT, dean of the School of Health andyour brain to lessen the pain. I’ve never
spent another whole day on that sofa!”
Could the cure for chronic and
short-term back pain start with sim-
ply changing your attitude? The idea
sounds crazy. Back pain causes real ag-
ony for 58 million Americans and fuels
an $87 billion treatment industry of
high-tech scans, spinal cord injections,
opioid painkillers, and surgery. And yet
the evidence continues to mount that
these approaches may not help—and
could even make things worse.
In the first study of long-term opi-
oid use for back pain, published
in March 2018 in the Journal of the
American Medical Association, par-
ticipants who took opioids had higher
pain levels a year later compared with
those who took acetaminophen or a
nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory.
“Long-term use of opioids can
actually worsen pain, along with
causing dependence,” says Xavier
Jimenez, MD, medical director of the
Cleveland Clinic program that helped
Huggins. Meanwhile, the latest re-
search from prominent pain experts
is revealing how surprisingly effec-
tive low-tech strategies can be. In a
2016 University of Washington study,
COULD THE CURE
FOR BACK PAIN START
WITH CHANGING
YOUR ATTITUDE?rd.com 71Health & Medicine Reader’s Digest