How effective are Topical pain relief ointments and the like for back pain?

The advantages of topical products is that they are site specific, which means you
actually only attack the area where the pain is, not the whole body. This allows you
to use stronger active ingredients because they are not going around the whole
body where they could cause harm.

In some cases, pills on the market can cause side effects i.e. nausea, headaches
even liver damage because they are circulating the whole body. If you need to
provide ingest pain pills with your topical cream, it shows that your cream is
ineffective by itself.

Rubbing ointments onto aching back joints can be used alone or in addition to other
treatments. Ointments may bring pain relief by themselves or in addition to that from
other treatments. Topical class of ointments are:

• capsaicin ointments
• counterirritant ointments
• NSAID ointments
• penetrating ointments

Be careful when you make your purchase, there are many company making claims
that they cannot prove, or are simply untrue and others that are trying to take
advantage of your back pain condition to make a lot of money.