Back Pain? Don’t Bother with Tylenol

New clinical study upends world of back pain treatment

The world of back pain treatment has been upended as a widely used drug was rigorously tested…and found to be much less effective than advertised.

A new, well designed study of acute low back pain found Paracetamol (the chemical name of Tylenol) did not

Reduce pain intensity
Improve sleep quality, or
Reduce recovery time for all three groups – an average of 17 days.

This adds to a growing body of research that chronic back pain patients do not benefit long term from pain medication as had been previously believed. The placebo benefits of taking a pill are largely outweighed by the proven liver and kidney damage associated with long term use. As a result, researchers such as Dr. Andrew Moore, senior researcher at Churchill Hospital, Oxford, are now “willing to bet in 10 years’ time national guidelines will have changed.”

OUR TAKEAWAY: For back pain, as well as wellness…
Restoring control of motion with symmetry makes more sense than chemically inhibiting pain perception and the inflammatory response.

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Williams, C, Maher, CG, Latimer, J, McLachlan, AJ, Hancock, MJ, O Day, R, Lin, C. (25 July 2014). Efficacy of paracetamol for acute low-back pain: a double-blind, randomised controlled trial. The Lancet. Retrieved from http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)60805-9/abstract