If you suffer from low back pain, you are not alone. At some point in his or her life, ninety percent of Americans will deal with low back pain. Back Pain represents the fifth most common reason for doctor visits. The direct care cost in the United States each year for back pain is 16 billion dollars! On any given day in the United States over six million people are in bed with back pain.

There is some news that is good. Within six to twelve weeks, 90% of back pain resolves completely, regardless of the treatment undertaken. If a person undergoes physical therapy, chiropractic treatment, interventional pain management, muscle relaxers,pain medication, or back bracing the pain resolution may occur faster. And then if the exercises including core stabilization and lumbar strengthening are continued it can result in prophylaxis from back pain recurring in the future. Studies have shown that bed rest longer than two days is contraindicated and patients should be out of bed mobilizing and trying to be as active as possible to get their pain resolved. With bedrest, pain does not get better any faster and unfortunately the person becomes deconditioned which can elongate the time in pain.

For ten percent of patients, back pain turns chronic. Chronic is defined as pain that lasts for longer than three months.

Approximately 50% of individuals with chronic back pain become disabled and incapable of working or carrying out normal daily living tasks, and unable to participate in leisure and recreational activities. This can lead to drug abuse, family dysfunction, marital strife, and depression. If a person is out of work for over six months, there is less than a one in two chance that person will ever go back to work. Once a person is out of work for over 2 years, the chances of that person ever returning to work again are rare.

Of those patients whos pain becomes chronic, a minority will elect to undergo surgery for pain relief. Five hundred thousand surgeries are performed each year on the low back in the US. As only twenty percent of back surgeries are considered complete successes after 2 years, surgery should be undertaken with extreme caution.