The Disappearing Pain Doctor

Hope everyone is having a great holiday! It's my plan to resume blogging at least weekly after taking a 7 month hiatus that was partly caused by my real world schedule ratcheting up and partly because no one was reading or at least commenting about the blog. However, following the "build it and they will come" philosophy, I plan on resuming posting regularly. But, I have decided that the postings will not be restricted to only pain topics. People in pain (PIPs) have lives apart from pain that I can also address and I will as the mood and events strike me and seem important. It was always my intentionfor this blog to be integrated into PIPs lives, and nonpaintopcis are part of that. We'll see how this works out in 2009.

Dr. Tim

BACK PAIN SURVEY OF TREATMENT SATISFACTION

A national, SpineUniverse survey of patient satisfaction with a range of back pain treatments yielded interesting results. Herbal remedies, over the counter pain medications, and acupuncture produced the greatest patient disatisfaction. Prescription pain medication, massage, exercise, and weight loss produced the greatest patient satisfaction. Less than half of the patients who underwent spine surgery were satisfied with the outcome of their surgery. If you are considering spine surgery, you may want to reread that last sentence. It is interesting to note that prescription pain medication and massage are treatments that are done to you. You have no real control over the outcome. Exercise and weight loss, both behavioral strategies are treatments that you do to and for you. You have complete control over them - but they are more work for you. You don't get to just passively lie there and be worked on. They are free, painless, and available to everybody. They also make every other treatment more effective. To read about the complete survey, go to:


http://www.spineuniverse.com/article/back-pain-3167.html