Non-Surgical Back Pain Options

Is your back pain a back sprain or degenerative disc disease? The answer may send you to a surgery that you do not need.

The chronic back pain patient typically experiences some type of trauma to the lower back that causes injury to the iliolumbar, sacroiliac, interspinous and supraspinous ligaments and some patients never know the cause of their pain. Over a long period of time this may cause some forward slippage of the fifth lumbar vertebra from the sacrum, which in turn causes excessive pressure on the vertebral disc. Fissures may occur in the disc (at the annulus fibrosis), and this exacerbates the degenerative disc problem.

Ligaments are designed to handle a normal amount of stress (activity or injury) that will stretch them to their natural limit. Once the stress is removed, the ligaments return to their normal length. If additional (traumatic) stress is applied—stretching the ligament beyond its natural range of extension—the ligament will not return to its normal length, but will instead remain permanently over stretched, diminishing its ability to hold the vertebrae in their proper place. Such a condition is called “ligament laxity.”

Ligament laxity in the lower back, as elsewhere in the body, maybe caused by a major traumatic injury, repeated minor injuries to the same area, normal aging, or the wearing out the collagen. Because of poor blood supply, ligaments do not heal well on their own, so once laxity exists, pain is only one wrong turn, twist or exertion away. Many people with this problem have intermittent periods of low back pain that increases with frequency and in severity with aging. 

In our own peer-reviewed published research which appeared in the medical journal Biomedical Journal of Scientific & Technical Research, we wrote: “Lower back pain can be a debilitating condition that is often caused by ligament and fascial sprains, and muscle strains. Even though the diagnosis may be a herniated disc, facet arthropathy, degenerative disc disease, spinal stenosis, scoliosis, spondylosis, spondylolisthesis, or other pathology, we have found for the past twenty years, with thousands of successfully treated patients, that the actual pain generator may not even be noted in the diagnosis.” Simply, you may only have a back sprain. This is typically not a problem that is treated surgically. How do we treat it?

Our published research on PRP injections for back pain

In 2019 we published our study on the effectiveness of PRP treatments for the patient who suffers from chronic low back pain. The study appears in the journal Cogent Medicine. The study can be found here in its entirety: Treatment of Unresolved Lower Back Pain with Platelet-Rich Plasma Injections.

This research gives an insight into what level of treatment success we can have with certain back pain conditions and how many PRP treatments the patient should expect towards achieving their treatment goals. In this study, we demonstrated PRP outcomes in 67 of our patients.

Our results demonstrated that PRP injections may be a viable conservative approach to treat lower back pain in regards to getting patients back to their everyday activities and improving pain and function.

Patients quickly returning to everyday activities:

Our study demonstrated that one, two or three PRP treatments were effective in significantly reducing active pain in the lower back. Additionally, functionality scores were significantly increased showing that patients were able to quickly return to everyday activities.

Patients experienced an improvement in resting pain and and active pain and functionality score after the one treatment, however, statistical significance was demonstrated only after the second and third treatments. 

Our results demonstrated that PRP injections may be a viable conservative approach to treat lower back pain in regards to getting patients back to their everyday activities and improving pain and function.

Our published research on Bone marrow concentrate injections for back pain

We have published research on the treatment of Low Back Pain with Bone Marrow Concentrate Injections. The research appears in the peer-reviewed Biomedical Journal of Scientific & Technical Research (BJSTR). The study can be found here in its entirety: Treatment of Lower Back Pain with Bone Marrow Concentrate.

The four patients included in this study underwent at least one BMC injection to the entheses of muscles, fascia, and ligaments surrounding the lumbar spine. At one-year follow-up all four patients experienced a decrease in resting and active pain. Patients also reported a mean 80% total overall improvement and were able to perform daily activities with less difficulty. These encouraging results warrant further investigation of the full potential of BMC injections for lower back pain.