A team of international health experts has accused the medical fraternity of “mismanaging” back pain and providing “ineffective and harmful” treatments.

Slowly but surely the public is starting to hear the truth about back pain.

Medicine demands evidence based medicine.  And yet people keep getting medicines like panadol and anti inflammatories prescribed for their back pain when the evidence does just not support this.

Dr Rochelle Buchbinder, a very well known Rheumatogist in Melbourne has been part of a recent study published in Lancet Medical Journal, one of the worlds pre eminent journals.  She says “The burden from low back pain has reached a tipping point where the condition is growing rapidly, is poorly understood and is being mismanaged medically — at cost both to the patient and to the healthcare system,” she said.  We could not agree more.

They found there is an over-reliance on scans, surgeries and opioid prescriptions to treat a problem that could be more effectively addressed through self-management and less-invasive physical and psychological therapies.

Great article on ABC website, here it is.

Worryingly, this is all happening whilst opioid presciptions have increased massively, as have addiction and deaths from this.

Back pain needs treatment from people who have experience in back pain.  Osteopaths like those at City Osteopathy study for 5 years to understand and learn how to treat mechanical pain such as back pain.