Category: Back Pain | Author: Stefano Sinicropi | Date: October 9, 2025
Back pain can be incredibly frustrating, and that’s especially true when you’re pursuing normal treatment protocols and your discomfort isn’t improving. This is the challenge patients with intractable back pain deal with on a daily basis. Unlike chronic back pain, which is classified as back pain that doesn’t resolve within a reasonable period of time (~6 weeks), intractable back pain is classified as back pain that is not improving with typical medical treatments.
If you’re finding that standard treatments aren’t helping you find relief, you can feel like you have nowhere else to turn. That’s not true. At Midwest Spine & Brain Institute, we pride ourselves on being able to help patients with all different types of back issues find solutions to their unique needs. If you’re dealing with intractable back pain, let us show you how we can help. In today’s blog, we take a closer look at how we often work with patients to help them get a better grip on their intractable back pain.
Updated Treatment Plan
If your current treatment strategies aren’t working, we’re going to recommend switching up your care protocol a bit. For many, this typically means more active or targeted treatments. If you’ve been resting or taking medications for your back pain, your doctor may recommend exercise, physical therapy or a targeted stretching program. If you’ve tried active interventions, more hands-on care in the form of corticosteroid injections or a surgery may be the next step. We don’t want you to continue pursuing ineffective treatments, so expect tweaks to your current treatment program.
Management Over Treatment
We also may talk with our patients about shifting their perspective a bit. Focus may need to shift from symptom alleviation to symptom management. We may stress that treatment should be about decreasing symptoms and improving function, not total alleviation of all discomfort. Even if your back pain can’t be completely alleviated, we’re confident that we can find ways to improve your situation and your quality of life. Getting better at managing back pain can make life with intractable back pain a little easier.
Treatment Adherence
Another discussion that we’ll have with patients about their intractable pain is in regards to adherence to their treatment plan. Effort plays a huge role in the effectiveness of your treatment plan, and if you’re skipping PT sessions or failing to lose weight like recommended, you shouldn’t be all that surprised that your treatment results aren’t where you’d like them to be. You get out what you put in, and if your effort could be improved, perhaps a huge overhaul of your treatment plan isn’t needed.
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