“DO you have back pain? Are you dismissing it as resulting from ‘lifting too much’ at the gym or ‘bad posture’?” one radio ad asks. “You might have ankylosing spondylitis.”

The drug advertised is Humira, which has a price tag of about US$20,000 a year. Side effects of the drug include tuberculosis, serious infections, increased risk of lymphoma and other cancers, hepatitis B infection in carriers of the virus, allergic reactions, nervous system problems, blood problems, heart failure, certain immune reactions, including a lupus-like syndrome, liver problems, and new or worsening psoriasis. And there are many more.

Considering that most cases of low back pain are not caused by inflammatory conditions, you probably do not need this drug. Recall that inflammation and pain is easily controlled with a 20-minute ice pack application in many instances, without the risks inherent in drugs.

Besides addictive and dangerous painkillers, pain injections also carry risks. Yearly, nearly two dozen people receiving steroid injections for chronic back pain contract meningitis. These outbreaks have been traced to a contaminated batch of injectable steroids.

Since poor posture and/or improper movement is to be blamed for most cases of back pain, one of the best things you can do to prevent and manage back pain is to exercise regularly and keep your back and abdominal muscles strong. But that will not make much of a difference, either, if your spine is out of alignment, putting pressure on your nervous system. This is where the specialised doctor of chiropractic comes into your overall optimal wellness and relief picture.

What’s causing the pain?

There is one thing that distinguishes chiropractic care from every other traditional model of care on the planet — chiropractors consider the root cause of the problem that results in symptom, rather than chasing the symptoms and trying to manage them, which is futile. Medicine compartmentalises human beings into parts and pieces when those parts and pieces are unable to function without the whole body and nervous system, when isolated. Medicine rarely considers, for instance, that your finger tingling, pain or numbness is actually due to a problem in your neck that is affecting the cervico-brachial plexus of nerves and radiates down the nerve path to the nerve destination. Medicine looks at the finger and finds nothing “wrong”, while chiropractic traces the source and corrects the mechanical problem typically contributing to or causing the indicator.

With the exception of blunt force injuries, low back pain is commonly caused and exacerbated by poor posture, poor physical conditioning facilitated by inactivity, medical internal diseases such as kidney stones, infections, blood clots, obesity, psychological/emotional stress, and osteoporosis (bone loss), etc.

However, in my 15 years of clinical experience with chiropractic care, it has become increasingly obvious that almost every single case of low back pain, as well as a plethora of other spinal, muscular, extremity, and systemic complaints, are indirectly, if not directly, associated with the alignment and motion of the human spine. The majority of those cases are simply chalked up to “slipped disc” — a misnomer — especially if there is any associated reported radiation of symptoms; and, even if it does not indicate a true sciatica that radiates all the way down the lower extremity.

With the right combination of spinal mechanical adjustments/alignments, proper diet, water, ice therapy, therapeutic ultrasound, and collagen supplementation, I have found time and again that conditions improve quickly, significantly and even “disappear”. It is a fact that most people who seek and continue natural chiropractic care function better, miss fewer days at work, and generally have a better quality of life.

Unfortunately, many simply end up taking painkillers and retiring to bed instead of improving their spinal alignment with a chiropractic adjustment and increasing their activity once the back pain starts or even after it “feels” better. An object in motion tends to stay in motion, while an object at rest tends to stay at rest. It is best to distinguish when a healing rest is needed, such as from a traumatic injury. Back pain is actually one of the primary reasons why so many adults get addicted to painkillers. Addiction is a terrible side effect of these drugs, considering they do not actively change the issue causing the pain in the first place. Prolonged and continuous use of drugs, at best, masks the pain and allows the condition to continue silently until there is an actual major medical issue or crisis, such as toxicity or organ failure.

Pharmaceutical drug overdoses now rank second only to motor vehicle crashes as the leading cause of accidental death in the US. The number of overdose deaths from opioid painkillers alone more than tripled from 1999 to 2006, to 13,800 deaths that year. This despite the fact that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) increased the restrictions for consumer drug ads in 2005, especially for COX-2 painkillers like Celebrex and Bextra.

In the past, most overdoses were due to illegal narcotics, such as heroin. But prescription painkillers have now surpassed both heroin and cocaine as the leading cause of fatal overdoses. In addition, more than 700,000 people visit US emergency rooms each year as a result of adverse drug reactions to all drugs, not just the opioids.

Adverse drug reactions from drugs that are properly prescribed and properly administered also kill about 106,000 people per year, making prescription drugs the fourth-leading cause of death in the US.

Pharmaceutical drugs kill more than twice as many Americans as HIV/AIDS or suicide, yet they’re still allowed to be advertised on television, radio and in magazines. This is particularly ironic when you consider that the death toll from illegal drugs – which is about 10,000 per year – is dwarfed by the death toll (106,000 or more) from “properly administered” pharmaceuticals.

The first step towards meaningful change is realising that prescription drugs are just as addictive and dangerous as illegal street drugs. In many cases, they are identical. The only difference is their legal status. For example, hydrocodone, a prescription opiate, is synthetic heroin – indistinguishable from any other heroin as far as your brain and body are concerned. So, if you’re hooked on hydrocodone, your body is responding as if you’re a heroin addict.

Perhaps even more ironic, prescription drug addiction is now also being advertised as a medical condition for which there is treatment. Back in the day, this was simply called drug rehab, but now they’re trying to remove the stigma associated with drug addiction, since the vast majority are hooked on “legal” meds. Just because the drugs are legal, does not mean the addiction is any less severe or damaging.

Keep all of these things in mind the next time you reach for any medication, either over the counter or prescription, involving repeated, long-term use, and don’t run out and buy every drug advertised for pain.

Here is my solemn recommendation to anyone who has been diagnosed with a “slipped” disc or ankylosing spondylitis and pops pills on a regular basis, receives injections to manage their pain, suffers through excruciating physical therapy without results, or is being corralled into the seemingly inevitable surgical fix for a diagnosis of a condition that does not even exist — or is at best, extremely rare. Get evaluated and treated by your local chiropractor and keep you spine aligned on a regular basis to improve motion, function, activities of daily work and living, and to decrease symptoms such as pain, degeneration and dysfunction while preventing accelerated fusion of your vertebral spinal segments. Age gracefully and with better function. Remember, true wellness care is an investment.

Don’t forget to “Ask Your Chiropractor” every week where your questions may be published and answered in subsequent articles. Address questions to: Dr Chris Davis, the Spinal Mechanic at movethebone@gmail.com; or, Dr Michael Harvey, director, at dr.michael_harvey@yahoo.com