Spine treatments administered through specific spine therapy procedures did very little in terms of helping individuals with severe back pain that is similar to the effects caused by fibromyalgia.
Procedures such as epidural steroid injections proved to be minimally effective as a form of treatment for the participants of the study.
Of the patients reporting for the back pain treatment study, nearly 42 percent were considered to have fibromyalgia when their symptoms were compared to the criteria set by the American College of Rheumatology.
The amounts of spine treatments like the ones administered in the study have seen a drastic increase in popularity over the past couple of decades.
Epidural steroid injections and facet joing interventions have seen the greatest jump in popularity, reported at increase levels of 100 percent and five hundred percent, respectively.
Although the procedures have become increasingly popular, the success rates of these procedures are overwhelmingly low. The failure rates of the procedures currently stand between 25 and 45 percent. The spine injection procedures have been recorded to have very little long-term benefit, as well.
There has been some research that argues that that poor response statistics have correlations with depression, the duration of symptoms, history with spine surgery, the use of opioids as a form of treatment, and young age.
Through research and study, it has been made more apparent that because the central nervous system’s abnormal pain processing plays a role in the development of fibromyalgia, local treatments of the spine will not be very successful in treating the symptoms associated to the disorder.
Additionally, individuals suffering from fibromyalgia usually possess low levels of pain-inhibiting neurotransmitters and high levels of neurotransmitters that increase pain sensations. This, of course, affects the success rate of treatments like spine injections.
Because of how unique the fibromyalgia disorder is, modified treatment approaches have become more prevalent than more traditional approaches.
An example would the use of serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors, a class of antidepressant drug medications, to treat lower back pains.
The use of behavior therapy and an exercise regimen specific to the fibromyalgia patient has seen more effective results than spine treatments have.
Of course, more tests using spine injections and the use of neuroimaging will provide more accurate readings of studies in which these treatments are administered. The limitations of the study may have been its cross-sectional and single site design.
Researchers will continue to test various theories about how to best treat the symptom associated with the fibromyalgia disorder. The condition is becoming more and more prevalent each day and those individuals suffering from its symptoms are in desperate need of answers.
Sleepless nights, depression, and constant muscle soreness and aches are quite the nuisance and can become terribly exhausting. The proper treatment or a possible cure for fibromyalgia has been very elusive because the disorder itself is so unique.
There is no verifiable cause for the development of the disorder so finding a cure for it has proven to be quite difficult for rheumatologists and their research teams.
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