Abstract
Objective:
The goal of this research was to study the feasibility of comparing heat therapy with sea salt versus sea salt combined with Chinese herbs for chronic low-back pain (cLBP) due to lumbar-disc herniation (LDH).
Materials and Methods:
This was a randomized, single-blinded, controlled feasibility study. Eight participants with cLBP were randomly allocated into 2 groups. Group S received a warm sea-salt bag alone and group S + H received warm sea-salt combined with Chinese herbs. Both groups (S and S+H) received treatment on the tender spot of the low-back area for 30 minutes, 3 times per week for 8 treatments. Participants were evaluated with the Roland–Morris Questionnaire (RMQ) for disability and a numeric rating scale (NRS) for pain before and after treatment.
Results:
The RMQ and the NRS revealed significant improvement in group S + H for reducing disability symptoms and LDH-related pain after treatment. Group S also had significant reductions per the RMQ scores after treatment but this result was not seen on the NRS. No signs of any side-effects were observed for either group.
Conclusions:
Heat therapy using a warm sea-salt bag + Chinese herbs helped reduce disability symptoms and cLBP due to LDH. It is feasible to conduct larger clinical studies to verify the results.
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