Although traction has been used to treat low back pain since ancient times, there’s little evidence to show that it actually helps.
For most back pain sufferers, the back pain resolves quickly, regardless of the type of treatment. Fewer than 5% of people with back pain have a major medical problem that requires either intensive care or surgery. But if you experience severe back pain that doesn’t improve after a couple of days of bed rest, or if your back pain is recurring or is accompanied by pain, numbness, or tingling that radiates into the buttocks or legs, it is important to see a doctor.
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If you have back pain, should you try traction? Little evidence supports the use of traction or corsets, although temporary use of a corset with built-in supports may be helpful during the recovery period following surgery or during activities that have to be performed even when you are still experiencing pain. Whether back braces help in treating back pain is unclear, and seemingly contradictory findings continue to be published.
Supporting data from the journal Spine (Volume 31, page 1591): The ancient Greeks used traction to treat low back pain. It’s still used, but there’s no hard evidence that traction helps reduce pain. So concludes a review of 24 studies that included 2,177 people with low back pain.
All varieties of traction use a harness, which is often weighted, worn either all the time or off-and- on. The harness is intended to improve alignment by gradually stretching the skeleton. The level of force and duration of treatment vary. The participants in these studies, both with and without sciatica, used various types of traction (with or without other treatments) or a placebo, for as little as two weeks or as long as a year. Their back pain ranged from acute (lasting less than four weeks) to chronic (more than 12 weeks).
The studies were of poor quality, analysts said, so the consensus may yet change. But for now, traction alone seems not to improve pain, disability, or ability to return to work, although traction using body weight (autotraction) was moderately better than the other types. Six studies even found that traction actually caused increases in pain and aggravated neurological signs.
