Antibiotics for backpain?

Barmeyoldbat that is what my father was like. At one point I thought he was dying. He was at first prescribed Tramadol, but that did not even begin to touch the pain. It took an MRI scan and blood tests to finally identify the problem.

Monica, for a while I had similar pain in my upper back and side, at times you couldn't even touch my back as it felt like a raw nerve, no-one could tell me what it was but I went on a high dose of antibiotics and it stopped. But oh the pain you just can't describe it.

Thankyou for that information - have forwarded it to someone suffering similarly - with no diagnosis - hopefully this may give them a scintilla of hope

There is an infection called discitis, where the cartilege between the discs becomes inflamed. My DF got it so badly he was in agonising pain. So bad they thought he might have a tumour. In the end he was kept in hospital on an antibiotic drip. It went in the end.

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I can't get into Medscape. They've sent me a reminder of my username, but a reminder of my password is not forthcoming. I've tried several guesses but no luck.

Careful reading by headline writers required? :

The Danish studies, published in the European Spinal Journal, found the presence of bacteria in 46 per cent of patients suffering from chronic lower back pain following a slipped or herniated disc.

Most bad backs are not herniated discs I believe. So 46% of a subset, please.

Here is a better summary of the research:

www.medscape.com/viewarticle/803858

I've sometimes had back pain that has come on for no good reason, lasted a week or three, and then went away. I have several times thought it was a virus of some kind. Maybe I was nearer the truth than I realised. (I know viruses and bacteria infections are different)

I think it's interesting research. But I would rather wait for it to go off, than take antibiotics.

Well it is not without precedent - it is only quite recently that the role of bacteria in stomach ulcers was discovered.

"The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has today decided to award
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 2005 jointly to

Barry J. Marshall and J. Robin Warren

for their discovery of "the bacterium Helicobacter pylori and its role in gastritis and peptic ulcer disease"

Summary
This year's Nobel Laureates in Physiology or Medicine made the remarkable and unexpected discovery that inflammation in the stomach (gastritis) as well as ulceration of the stomach or duodenum (peptic ulcer disease) is the result of an infection of the stomach caused by the bacterium Helicobacter pylori."
www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2005/press.html

That is what they are saying - that 40% of back pain has a bacterial root cause.

There would have to be a bacterial infection for this treatment to be effective.

Oh right!

#toldme