For virtually everyone, the chances that at some time in their lives something will go wrong with their backs are considerable. There are, after all, more muscles, joints, bones, nerves and ligaments running up and down the vertebrae in close proximity to each other than in any other paid of the body.
The subtle complexity of the interaction of these spinal structures, as back pain sufferers know only too well, can make it difficult for even the best-trained doctors with the most sophisticated diagnostic techniques to determine precisely what is amiss.
Tens of thousands of people are laid low with back pain every year. For some, the lucky ones, it resolves within a few weeks with a judicious combination of back pain treatments including exercises supplemented by painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs. But what of the rest? There are a myriad of different specialists involved in the treatment of back pain, each with their own opinion as to the likely explanation and me best way of putting it right.
Amidst this babble of competing views, the back pain sufferer can understandably find it difficult to know where to turn or how to evaluate their claims of efficacy. One vital source of information, much neglected but of great importance, is the judgment of the real experts, back pain sufferers themselves.
It was a most ingenious idea to invite the jury, nearly 500 American back pain sufferers, to deliver their verdict based on their own personal experience of the relative efficacy of the various back pain relief treatments on offer.
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