On NOS.nl we saw an interesting article about all the 'miracle remedies' being advised online to people with lower back pain. Google and Facebook very often offer bite-sized solutions that are often not nearly as effective as the provider would have you believe.
Back pain is one of the body's most common complaints. In the Netherlands alone, millions of people suffer from back or neck pain. Over two million people go to the GP with these complaints and around one and a half million go to the physiotherapist with the same complaints. The number is only increasing every year. So this is a very large group of people looking for a solution, which many product providers hope to make money from. This also the reason why all kinds of solutions are offered online, promising to cure the complaints. However, this is usually an empty promise.
Bite-sized solution, not nearly as effective as you think
Where medical science is in the dark, companies sell devices that promise to improve your posture and reduce your pain. For instance, there is a brace that supposedly leads to better posture. Companies that make these kinds of products look at common complaints and devise a product to go with them. As physiotherapists, we think it is a bad thing that products are offered as solutions without being proven effective.
We therefore warn you to be extra vigilant about this! With half-baked logic, people are addressed about their complaints.
Search on Google
Not sure what to do about back pain? Many people use Google as a medical reference source. The online search engine is widely used to list for yourself what might be causing the symptoms. You can do this, but check carefully how reliable the sites you get the information from are. Many providers are out to make you anxious about your condition, besides, you often get to see more serious conditions than what you yourself suffer from when you search on the symptoms. This is because of the following reasons:
- Google lists lots of different causes, from insignificant to severe. Seeing the serious symptoms can make you worry.
- There are often horror stories among them, because, after all, people love thrills. Even with the most innocuous conditions, cancer is sometimes talked about.
- Google offers no solutions, or the solutions are so vague that you don't know where to start.
So what should you do?
At the beginning of the article, we talked about the one and a half million people who go to the physiotherapist for lower back pain. This is not for nothing! It may sound logical, but like NOS.co.uk, we obviously recommend it too. Improving back pain is a process, not something that can generally be remedied overnight by a 'miracle cure'. We will discuss with you the type of complaints and the appropriate treatment.
Want to know more about what we can do for you? Visit contact with us and make an appointment!
Read the whole article on the NOS site.
