Oral Steroids Provide Little Help for Patients with Sciatica

New study from JAMA shows that Oral Steroids (Prednisone) for sciatica ( pinched nerve in low back causing leg symptoms) does not help pain, does not decrease need for surgery, and gives just a slight increase of functioning.
I am just amazed at how many common medical procedures and drugs for back pain and sciatica have now been shown to give no or little benefit! These cost us billions of dollars a year and have a risk of harm to patients. 
Why do we continue with all these unscientific dangerous practices for back and joint disorders?

Oral Steroids Provide Little Help for Patients with Sciatica

OSHA Computer Workstations eTool

This eTool website from OSHA can help you create a safe and comfortable computer workstation. This is the checklist page to get you started. Any no responses will send you to a page to analyze and control the problem.

Computer Workstations eTool

Overkill An avalanche of unnecessary medical care is harming patients physically and financially. What can we do about it?

It seems to be common sense that more medical care equals better health, but like anything else too much of anything can be bad. Here is a very good article by a surgeon arguing that we are now getting too much medical testing and treatment and in some cases it is doing more harm than good, and it is also costing us a lot of money. 
It is a rather long article but I encourage you to read it...at least the first 2/3 where he talks about the possible harms from over testing and over screening.
Do you understand how over testing can be harmful?

Overkill An avalanche of unnecessary medical care is harming patients physically and financially. What can we do about it? BY ATUL GAWANDE

Tylenol Acetaminophen A Poor Choice for Relieving Your Low Back Pain

I recently reported on a new meta-analysis from the British Medical Journal concluding that acetaminophen/Tylenol is ineffective in the treatment of low back pain. Unfortunately it can also cause significant harm including death. 
In fact, improper use, coupled with the drug's narrow safety margin, means "a large fraction of users [are] close to a toxic dose in the ordinary course of use," according to the Food and Drug Administration. Also the FDA has mandated that all acetaminophen-containing prescription products feature a "black box" warning (the administration's strongest safety statement) noting an overdose can cause liver failure and even death; and have been urged to place similar language on OTC acetaminophen products.
So it definitely is a poor choice for back pain treatment.

A Poor Choice for Relieving Your Low Back Pain