Saline jab, a new relief for pack pain

A saline jab to the spine has been shown to be far more effective than steroids for treating the debilitating condition. The breakthrough treatment targeting lower back pain means patients would not have to endure the side-effects of drugs now used to treat the problem, say experts. Professor Steven Cohen, who led the research in America, said: “Just injecting liquid into the epidural space appears to work. This shows us that most of the relief may not be from the steroid, which everyone worries about.” Prof Cohen, from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, said it was too soon to recommend that patients stop receiving epidural steroids, but added his analysis suggests smaller steroid doses can be just as beneficial. He said: “It’s likely that those studies were actually comparing two treatments, rather than placebo versus treatment. Researchers may be wasting millions and precious time on such studies.” “Although epidural injections have been widely used to treat back pain, both patients and doctors have been skeptical about the real benefit, and a number of previous trials have tried to compare injections with placebo treatments. For the first time, this research has pulled together all of the data and shown that people respond better to a placebo rather than the epidural injections. This suggests that treating chronic back pain is complex and more about treating the pain pathway rather than the back itself.”