Jeff LangmaidFounder, The Evidence Based Chiropractor

Why Some Patients Stay on Pain Meds for Years (New Study Insight)

10 Dec 2025 · 1 min

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Jeff Langmaid (chiropractor) introduces a new Danish study titled 'The role of pre-existing analgesic use and self-efficacy for continued use of analgesics among patients with persistent low back pain.' He frames the problem that some patients continue using pain medications for months or years despite improvements in function from chiropractic care and suggests the study offers an explanation and practical actions for chiropractors.

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Have you ever had a patient using pain meds for months, maybe years or longer than you think that they should be? You help them move better each day as a chiropractor, you help them understand what's going on with their function, with the pain itself, and you help them ultimately feel safer in their body by getting over fear avoidance behaviors. Yet when we really dig under the hood, we see with some of our patients, medications still stick around in in this study, brand new one out of Denmark, title of it, the role of pre existing analgesic use and self efficacy for continued use of analgesics among patients with persistent low back pain. This came out of Denmark, and it may give us probably what I'm going to call one of the clearest explanations of why this happens, and more importantly, what we can do, you and I, about it as chiropractors.