You bend over to pick up the recycling bin … you reach for a can of peas … you stretch for a forehand lob, twist to hit a five-iron fade and … ping, arghh, oooohhh, you’re doubled over with back pain. Doctor, do something.
Back and neck pain accounts for 2 percent of all visits to the doctor, more than all ailments except for hypertension and diabetes, according to a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association. It cited a 2002 survey of U.S. adults that found about one in four had recently experienced lower back pain.
All told, we spent $86 billion on spine care in 2005 — a 65 percent rise in eight years. Spending on narcotic analgesics such as OxyContin and Vicodin soared 423 percent in that time. But also contributing to the spending rise was “lower threshold for treatment, higher patient expectations for care, and increasing use of spinal fusion surgery,” the report said. In other words, patients said, “doc, do something.” And they tried.
The JAMA report concludes, though, that we’re not getting much for our money. In fact, we’re probably wasting a lot of money on our backs. Back problems, though, are “rarely life-threatening and usually resolve on their own,” said Brook Martin, a research scientist at the University of Washington who was lead author of the study.
So yes, you can conclude that most of those exams and MRIs, therapies and surgeries are a waste of time and money. But U.S. doctors approach back pain with the idea that we should “do everything for everyone,” Martin said in an interview.
Patients don’t like it when their doctor tells them, “Take two aspirin and suck it up.”
But health-care costs have been rising much faster than the general rate of inflation for years, and this is just one symptom of the problem. So remember, your aching back isn’t going to kill you.
