Ozempic, pain, study design

[epidural man]

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If I wanted to study if Ozempic could help reduce weight and thus decrease back pain - how would you suggest I set up that study?

 

[gaspasser127]

Are you looking to see if patients who have obesity and chronic back pain who then lose weight with ozempic also see a decrease in back pain? Or if the amount of decrease in back pain is greater than weight loss though diet and exercise alone?

 

[epidural man]

Are you looking to see if patients who have obesity and chronic back pain who then lose weight with ozempic also see a decrease in back pain? Or if the amount of decrease in back pain is greater than weight loss though diet and exercise alone?

Great question!

I’m looking for thoughts like this.

However, I don’t think I will do an arm with just diet and exercise. I’m more wanting to know if weight loss is accompanied with a decrease in back pain.

And getting people to do diet and exercise is impossible - so I could get ACTUAL weight loss results pharmacologically - and that would be a great way to test if back pain decreases.

 

[Baron S]

Are you asking us to do your entire study design for you? Do we get to be 1st author?

 

[epidural man]

Are you asking us to do your entire study design for you? Do we get to be 1st author?

Not the ENTIRE study design - just most of the stuff that requires brain power.

 

[Agast]

Design it with Ductape 😉

 

[gaspasser127]

Is there any data right now on weight loss and back pain relief? Or how about weight loss and central pain syndromes?

This could be a really interesting study.

Inclusion criteria:
- Chronic LBP being managed with conventional treatments (ESI, RF, meds)
- BMI > 30
- Undergoing weight loss therapy with Ozempic

Exclusion criteria:
- h/o Fibro
- uncontrolled psychiatric disorder
- SCS in place (adds a layer of complexity that may make results difficult to interpret)

Follow up over a one year period

In additional to VAS scores may be nice to look at other outcome measures as well (functionality, depressive symptoms, etc)

Follow up study can look at central pain syndromes as a whole

 

[callmeanesthesia]

Just use ChatGPT to write your protocol. It does a surprisingly good job if you prompt carefully.

 

[epidural man]

Just use ChatGPT to write your protocol. It does a surprisingly good job if you prompt carefully.

even the crappy free version?