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Muscle relaxant drugs prescribed for lower back pain are largely ineffective in ensuring long-term benefits, according to a new study published in the British Medical Association’s peer-reviewed journal, BMJ.
The research was conducted in the form of 31 randomized controlled trials involving more than 6,500 participants to assess the effectiveness of prescription muscle relaxants. He showed that while muscle relaxants could effectively reduce pain in the short term, they did not have significant long-term benefits and came with an increased risk of side effects. The researchers warned that large-scale trials are needed to ensure certainty about the use of lower back pain drugs.
The researcher also urged clinicians to be transparent about the possible effects of pain relievers while prescribing them to their patients. “We encourage clinicians to discuss this uncertainty about the efficacy and safety of muscle relaxants with patients, sharing information about the possibility of a valid benefit in pain reduction but an increased risk of experience a non-serious adverse event, in order to enable them to make treatment decisions, ”they wrote.
Research also found that antispasmodic drugs other than benzodiazepines reduced pain intensity after two weeks in patients with acute low back pain, but the effect was too weak to reach clinical thresholds. Antispasmodic drugs other than benzodiazepines, however, had little or no effect on pain. Low and very low certainty evidence also indicated that these drugs increased the risk of side effects such as headache, nausea, drowsiness. Neither drug had a long-term effect on pain.
“Large, high-quality, placebo-controlled trials are urgently needed to resolve uncertainties about the efficacy and safety of muscle relaxants for lower back pain,” the researchers concluded in their study.
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