Antibiotics could help chronic lower back pain

 People with chronic low back pain could benefit from a course of antibiotics, suggests new research published in the European Spine Journal.

A team from the University of Southern Denmark looked at if antibiotics were effective in people with bone oedema (present in 35% to 40% of people with chronic low back pain and in 6% of the general population).

Participants comprised 162 people who’d had lower back pain for over six months after a slipped disc. Half were given a 100-day course of antibiotic treatment, the other half received a dummy drug.

At the end of a one-year follow up period, people who had received the antibiotics were less likely to have lower back pain and physical disability than those who had taken the dummy drug. And they were less likely to have leg pain.

The experts explain the results by suggesting that some back pain is because of an infected disc.

The down-side to the study is that it could encourage more people to ask their GPs for antibiotics at a time when the health service is trying to reduce prescriptions.