STEROIDS AND BACK PAIN: Not so helpful? “Studies are at best inconclusive about exactly which groups of back-pain patients are likely to benefit from steroid shots. Though some patients clearly get much-needed relief, health researchers are nearly unanimous that the treatment is vastly overused in the United States. But Dr. Laxmaiah Manchikanti, head of the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians, said the increasing number of spine injections was just part of ‘an exponential increase in all interventional techniques’ and is a good thing, reflecting a better understanding of chronic pain and patients’ demands for improved pain relief.”

It seems like nothing works all that well for back pain, though.