An Alternative Option for Chronic Neck Pain That Seems to Work

Low-level laser therapy is apparently helpful in relieving chronic neck pain, according to a Lancet report.  The condition is a common one, and medications are, for the most part, ineffective.  Treatment options include rest, heat/ice applications, traction, a soft collar, physical therapy (ultrasound, massage, manipulation), local injections of cortisone or anesthetics, topical anesthetic creams, topical pain patches, drugs (muscle relaxants, analgesics), and surgical procedures.  Patients may work their way through this list without getting much relief.  So a report like this one from the Lancet is very welcome.

The Australian scientists searched computerized databases for randomized clinical studies in patients with acute or chronic neck pain where laser therapy was compared with a placebo therapy or an ‘active’ control therapy (e.g. exercise).  The laser therapy had to be low-level, but could be of any wave length.  Pain intensity was the endpoint, making use of a 100 mm visual analog scale.  There were 16 trials including a total of 820 patients that met these criteria.

In acute neck pain, laser therapy was 1.7-times as likely to improve the pain score as the placebo was.  With chronic pain, laser-treated subjects were over 4 times as likely to show improvement.  Seven of the trials provided data for 1 to 22 weeks following the treatment, with similar but slightly less effective results.  Side-effects were mild and similar to those from the control.

This analysis and, in fact, the use of laser therapy, has come in for some criticism from different experts in the pain management field.  However, there have not been published studies suggesting that low-level laser therapy is valueless or unsafe.  Chronic neck pain is a difficult condition to treat.   I think that sufferers, after having the cause determined, might consider laser therapy (along with physical therapy) fairly early on, in their search for relief.