Acute Back Pain Treatment
Acute (starts quickly and lasts less than 6 weeks) back pain usually gets better without any treatment, but you may want to take acetaminophen, aspirin, or ibuprofen to help ease the pain. Exercise and surgery are not usually used to treat acute back pain.
Chronic Back Pain Treatment
Some types of treatments:
- Hot Packs or Cold Packs or Both - Heat reduces muscle spasms and pain, cold helps reduce swelling and numbs deep pain, but this treatment does not fix the cause of chronic back pain.
- Exercise - Proper exercise can help ease chronic pain but should not be used for acute back pain. Your doctor or physical therapist can tell you the best types of exercise to do.
- Medications
- Analgesic medications - acetaminophen and aspirin or prescription pain medications.
- Topical analgesics - creams, ointments, and salves rubbed onto the skin over the site of pain.
- Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) - drugs that reduce both pain and swelling, NSAIDs include over-the-counter drugs such as ibuprofen, ketoprofen, and naproxen sodium or your doctor may prescribe stronger NSAIDs.
- Muscle relaxants and some antidepressants may be prescribed for some types of chronic back pain, but these do not work for every type of back pain.
- Behavior Changes - proper lifting, pushing, pulling, relaxing, and sleeping can help lessen back pain and put less stress on your back. Eating a healthy diet and not smoking also help.
- Injections - Ask your doctor about steroid or numbing shots.
- Complementary and Alternative Medical Treatments
- Manipulation - Adjust or massage the spine or nearby tissues by professionals.
- Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) - A small box over the painful area sends mild electrical pulses to nerves, may not always effective for reducing pain.
- Acupuncture - use of thin needles to relieve pain and restore health.
- Acupressure - Pressure applied to certain places in the body to relieve pain, although not studied well for back pain.
- Surgery - Usually used for chronic back pain if other treatments do not work. You may need surgery if you have:
- Herniated disk - When one or more of the disks that cushion the bones of the spine are damaged, the jelly-like center of the disk leaks, causing pain.
- Spinal stenosis - causes the spinal canal to become narrow.
- Spondylolisthesis - one or more bones of the spine slip out of place.
- Vertebral fractures - caused by a blow to the spine or by crumbling of the bone due to osteoporosis.
- Degenerative disk disease - As people age, some have disks that break down and cause severe pain.