Self-medication for chronic neck pain is the first step down an unproductive, rocky road

A relief in the neck

I’m not going to name names or go into details, but before I landed at HSI, I worked with a guy who was, well…to put it nicely, kind of a pain in the neck. I’ll call him N.P.

Now, maybe it was karma or just coincidence, but N.P. also happened to suffer from chronic neck pain. And stubborn guy that he was, he refused to go to a doctor because he felt he had the situation under control.

To manage the pain, he simply took several ibuprofen tablets every day.

That’s four big mistakes wrapped into one: He self-diagnosed (not a good idea for a chronic condition), self medicated, created a dependence on the medication, and made himself vulnerable to serious long-term side effects.

If only N.P. knew then what we know now…

Increasing dosage for less relief

If you’ve got a pain in the neck, you’re not alone. Nearly three in every four adults will experience neck pain at some point.

And now I’m going to make up a statistic: More than half of those with neck pain will attempt to medicate themselves with over-the-counter painkillers.

That might not be a provable statistic, but we know this for sure: A lot of people do it and it’s the wrong way to go.

In a new study from Northwestern Health Sciences University, a variety of different drugs were significantly less effective in relieving neck pain that ranged from acute to subacute, which sounds like another way of saying “nagging and annoying.”

More than 270 adults with neck pain were divided into three groups. For three months, one group received brief chiropractic sessions at least once each week, one group got instructions for simple neck exercises from a physical therapist, and one group received OTC drugs such as acetaminophen or prescription drugs such as muscle relaxants.

Overall, these were the percentages in each group that reported at least a 75 percent reduction in pain:

Chiropractic group — 57 percent
Exercise group — 48 percent
Drug group — 33 percent

In a follow-up one year later, pain relief was still significantly higher in the chiropractic and exercise groups. Many subjects in the drug group said they needed to increase dosages and frequency to maintain the lower level of pain relief.

And needless to say, if the subjects in this group continued on with medication, they set themselves up for gastrointestinal damage, liver damage, increased risk of heart problems, drug dependency and other side effects that will eventually make neck pain a minor issue.

Drugs lose. Pain wins.

One quick side note: This study was funded by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, of the National Institutes of Health. So chalk up yet another success to silence the NCCAM naysayers.

Sources: 
“Spinal Manipulation, Medication, or Home Exercise With Advice for Acute and Subacute Neck Pain” Annals of Internal Medicine, Vol. 156, No. 1, 1/3/12, annals.org