Medication For Your Back Pain, Know What You Take
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Richard_Collins]Richard Collins
If you suffer from back pain the one thing you want as quick as possible is pain relief. The level of pain felt will vary between persons, it all depends on the pain tolerance a person has but also on what the cause of the back pain is. Most often you can treat the pain with medication like naproxen or ibuprofen. These are so called non-steriodal anti-inflammatory drugs. One of the biggest problems with these NSAIDs is that you can get potential side effects like increased risk of heart attack or stroke and/or gastrointestinal bleeding.
When you're looking for medication witch don't have these side effects maybe COX-2 inhibitors are an option. At this moment they haven't shown any negative side effects on the gastrointestinal system. Testing, however, is still continuing because the long term safety still has to be determined. Long term usage of non-sterodial anti-inflammatory drugs can have the increasing potential of gastrointestinal and/or kidney damage. The verdict on COX-2 is still out until the research on long term use is done and the effects are known to us.
Although most of the over the counter drugs don't have the same strength as NAIDs, Acetaminophen has shown some successes as pain medication when it comes to reducing the discomfort of having a back pain, and this all without having the many side effects NIADs have. When muscle spasm is the main cause of the pain there are only a few options in pain medications that can reduce the pain.
Drowsiness is the cause of pain medication
The most prescribed drugs, which are part of a persons back pain medication, are muscle relaxers. About 30% of those users have reported that they become extremely drowse when they take them. Muscle relaxers also have not proved to be very effective against muscle spasms even when they are used together with NAIDs no there was no real benefit shown. Muscle relaxers may be more effective then a placebo but the effects physicians have seen they have on alertness makes them very reluctant to prescribe them.
When a person has acute back pain, in some cases, an opiate medication may be prescribed only they have certain side effects you will have to take in to account. These side effects are sedation, clouded judgment, nausea and not in the least the high potential for addiction. Therefor you will never be allowed to take this type of medication for more then a few days. Constipation is one of the most heard of complaint. All though opiate medication or narcotics as pain medication is very effective for pain relieve they will not help to reduce any of the healing time.
No benefit has been shown of oral steroids being a good medication for back pain and there is also no benefit if taken as an injection in the back or as epidural. When used on sciatica they have been successful but without sciatica it's not known to give any relief as a back pain medication.
Richard Collins knows about back pain first hand. He has seen all kinds of doctors and done all kinds of therapies. On his blog at [http://www.gottabackpain.com/]www.gottabackpain.com he talks about what can be done to alleviate the pain.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Richard_Collins http://EzineArticles.com/?Medication-For-Your-Back-Pain,-Know-What-You-Take&id=1109990
Monday, April 21, 2008
Monday, February 11, 2008
Got a Slipped Disc? - Try this alternative remedy...
Ozone Nucleolysis Or Ozone Discectomy Is A Non-Operative Intervention For Slipped Disc
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Gautam_Das]Gautam Das
Ozone nucleolysis or ozone discectomy is a non-operative intervention slipped disc / disc prolapse & discogenic pain.
Muto suggested intradiscal injection of ozone for disc hernia in 1998 under CT guidance. Leonardi popularized fluoroscopy guided ozone injection into the intervertebral disc. After that, successful outcome has been reported from various European centers. It is very important to note from those reports that complications are remarkably few. Not a single serious life-threatening complication was found even after 300000 cases of Ozone nucleolysis, which stresses the safety of these procedures
How ozone acts? The action of ozone is due to the active oxygen atom liberated from breaking down of ozone molecule. When ozone is injected into the disc the active oxygen atom called the singlet oxygen or the free radicle attaches with the proteo-glycan bridges in the jelly-like material or nuceus pulposus. They are broken down and they no longer capable of holding water. As a result disc shrinks and mummified. So the intradiscal volume and intradiscal pressure is reduced. Thus there is decompression of nerve. It is almost equivalent to surgical discectomy and so the procedure is called ozone discectomy. It is also called ozone nucleolysis or ozonucleolysis. Besides, it has an anti-inflammatory action due to inhibitions of formation of inflammation producing substances and tissue oxygenation is increased due to increased 2,3 diphosphoglycerate level in the red blood cells. All these factors lead to decompression of nerve roots, decreased inflammation of nerve roots, and increased oxygenation to the diseased tissue for repair work.
It is done usually under local anaesthesia. Light general anaesthesia may be administered in apprehensive patients only. The patient is taken to the operation theater lying on prone position. Very fine needle is introduced into the diseased disc under fluoroscopic guidance. The position of needle tip may be confirmed by injecting some small amount of radio-opaque dye. Then some 3-5 cc of oxygen-ozone mixture (at a concentration of 29 microgram/ml.) is injected into the disc. Ozone at this concentration is not all harmful for the surrounded tissue. So if ozone spreads to the surrounded tissues including spinal cord causes no harm. Ozone molecule is not stable. It has a half-life of about 20 minutes only. So, within 20 minutes only half of the original ozone remains, the rest becomes oxygen. Increase in temperature decreases its half-life. For injection it is always freshly prepared on site (from an ozone generator) for immediate administration. Only Ozone resistant syringes can be used for injecting it. While needle with the syringe is taken out some amount of oxygen-ozone mixture is also injected into the paraspinal muscle and para-radicular soft tissue to reduce nerve root inflammation and increased oxygenation of the para-spinal muscles. Some 15 to 30 minutes is required to perform the total procedure depending on the experience of the interventionist.
There are few conditions when this procedure should not be performed. They are active bleeding from any site, pregnancy, G6PD deficiency, active hyperthyroidism, loss of control of urination & defecation, and progressive sensory & motor loss (paralysis).
Ozonucleolysis, ozone nucleolysis or ozone discectomy has a success rate of about 80%. On the other hand surgical discectomy has similar success rate but much higher side effects compared to remarkably few side effects of ozone discectomy. Ozone discectomy is usually a day care procedure and general anaesthesia is not usually required. Total cost of the procedure is much less than that of surgical discectomy. All these facts have made this procedure very popular European countries. It is also gaining popularity in India too due to low cost, less hospital stay, no post-operative discomfort and morbidity and very few side effects. http://www.painindia.net http://www.painindia.net/ozone.php http://www.painindia.net/ozonenucleolysis.php
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gautam_Das http://EzineArticles.com/?Ozone-Nucleolysis-Or-Ozone-Discectomy-Is-A-Non-Operative-Intervention-For-Slipped-Disc&id=975082
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Gautam_Das]Gautam Das
Ozone nucleolysis or ozone discectomy is a non-operative intervention slipped disc / disc prolapse & discogenic pain.
Muto suggested intradiscal injection of ozone for disc hernia in 1998 under CT guidance. Leonardi popularized fluoroscopy guided ozone injection into the intervertebral disc. After that, successful outcome has been reported from various European centers. It is very important to note from those reports that complications are remarkably few. Not a single serious life-threatening complication was found even after 300000 cases of Ozone nucleolysis, which stresses the safety of these procedures
How ozone acts? The action of ozone is due to the active oxygen atom liberated from breaking down of ozone molecule. When ozone is injected into the disc the active oxygen atom called the singlet oxygen or the free radicle attaches with the proteo-glycan bridges in the jelly-like material or nuceus pulposus. They are broken down and they no longer capable of holding water. As a result disc shrinks and mummified. So the intradiscal volume and intradiscal pressure is reduced. Thus there is decompression of nerve. It is almost equivalent to surgical discectomy and so the procedure is called ozone discectomy. It is also called ozone nucleolysis or ozonucleolysis. Besides, it has an anti-inflammatory action due to inhibitions of formation of inflammation producing substances and tissue oxygenation is increased due to increased 2,3 diphosphoglycerate level in the red blood cells. All these factors lead to decompression of nerve roots, decreased inflammation of nerve roots, and increased oxygenation to the diseased tissue for repair work.
It is done usually under local anaesthesia. Light general anaesthesia may be administered in apprehensive patients only. The patient is taken to the operation theater lying on prone position. Very fine needle is introduced into the diseased disc under fluoroscopic guidance. The position of needle tip may be confirmed by injecting some small amount of radio-opaque dye. Then some 3-5 cc of oxygen-ozone mixture (at a concentration of 29 microgram/ml.) is injected into the disc. Ozone at this concentration is not all harmful for the surrounded tissue. So if ozone spreads to the surrounded tissues including spinal cord causes no harm. Ozone molecule is not stable. It has a half-life of about 20 minutes only. So, within 20 minutes only half of the original ozone remains, the rest becomes oxygen. Increase in temperature decreases its half-life. For injection it is always freshly prepared on site (from an ozone generator) for immediate administration. Only Ozone resistant syringes can be used for injecting it. While needle with the syringe is taken out some amount of oxygen-ozone mixture is also injected into the paraspinal muscle and para-radicular soft tissue to reduce nerve root inflammation and increased oxygenation of the para-spinal muscles. Some 15 to 30 minutes is required to perform the total procedure depending on the experience of the interventionist.
There are few conditions when this procedure should not be performed. They are active bleeding from any site, pregnancy, G6PD deficiency, active hyperthyroidism, loss of control of urination & defecation, and progressive sensory & motor loss (paralysis).
Ozonucleolysis, ozone nucleolysis or ozone discectomy has a success rate of about 80%. On the other hand surgical discectomy has similar success rate but much higher side effects compared to remarkably few side effects of ozone discectomy. Ozone discectomy is usually a day care procedure and general anaesthesia is not usually required. Total cost of the procedure is much less than that of surgical discectomy. All these facts have made this procedure very popular European countries. It is also gaining popularity in India too due to low cost, less hospital stay, no post-operative discomfort and morbidity and very few side effects. http://www.painindia.net http://www.painindia.net/ozone.php http://www.painindia.net/ozonenucleolysis.php
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gautam_Das http://EzineArticles.com/?Ozone-Nucleolysis-Or-Ozone-Discectomy-Is-A-Non-Operative-Intervention-For-Slipped-Disc&id=975082
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