Just say NO

I encourage my patient to be as active as possible with as little pain as possible. I think that this helps tremendously when a patient is confronted with chronic back pain. A Yale study found also that persons who try to treat back pain with medications only may be hurting themselves more than helping.

"Patients with chronic back pain commonly request pain medication, and opioid medications are used despite the concerns clinicians have with patients developing an addiction to these medications," said first author Bridget Martell, M.D., assistant clinical professor of general internal medicine at Yale School of Medicine. "Our findings suggest that clinicians should consider other treatments with similar benefits but fewer long-term adverse effects."