Smoking: The Hidden Fuel Behind Chronic Back Pain, UAE Experts Sound Alarm and Offer Real Solutions

• Transforming Pain Care: RAK Hospital Offers Minimally Invasive Alternatives to Surgery with 90% Long-Term Relief
• Prolonged Painkiller Use May Harm Kidneys, Warns RAK Hospital Expert
• One in five UAE adults suffer from chronic pain; sedentary jobs, increasing obesity rates, lack of core-strengthening activity, and heavy lifting without proper technique are major contributors

29 October 2025; Ras Al Khaimah, UAE— Smoking has long been linked to lung disease, cancer, and heart problems but a lesser-known impact is now stepping into the medical spotlight: its powerful role in worsening chronic back pain. In the UAE, where back and spine issues are increasingly affecting adults over 30 due to sedentary office jobs, long commutes, obesity, and lifestyle factors, experts are urging residents to pay attention to this overlooked connection.

Recent global research, including data from over 400,000 participants in the UK Biobank study, shows smokers face significantly higher risks of chronic back pain compared to non-smokers, with heavier smoking increasing that risk further. Smoking reduces blood supply to spinal tissues, delays disc healing, heightens inflammation, and weakens bone health creating a perfect storm that both causes and amplifies pain.

"Many people think of smoking as a lung or heart issue, but it's also a hidden accelerant for back pain," says Dr. Tinku Jose Kurisinkal, Consultant Neurosurgeon and Interventional Pain Specialist at RAK Hospital. "It interferes with the body's healing mechanisms, making conventional treatments less effective and pain harder to manage. In the UAE, where smoking and sedentary lifestyles are prevalent, this connection is especially important."

Across the Emirates, chronic back and neck pain has become one of the most common complaints in both working professionals and manual labourers. Long working hours at desks, increasing obesity rates, lack of core-strengthening activity, and heavy lifting without proper technique are major contributors. According to regional insights, one in five UAE adults suffer from chronic pain lasting over three months often with significant impact on productivity, sleep, and emotional wellbeing.

Talking about how pain care can be transformed using advanced interventions. Dr Kurisinkal says, "For many people, long-term painkillers and physiotherapy bring only temporary relief, doing little to address the true source of pain. However, that reality is changing through a new generation of evidence-based interventional pain management, minimally invasive, image-guided procedures that treat pain at its root.

From epidural steroid injections that ease inflammation caused by disc herniations or nerve compression, to facet joint nerve blocks and radiofrequency ablation that deactivate pain-transmitting nerves for up to a year or more, these advanced treatments offer renewed hope. The hospital also performs sacroiliac joint and coccygeal injections for persistent pelvic or tailbone pain, as well as laser discectomy (PLDD), a non-surgical alternative for medium-sized disc problems. Each of the precision treatments is performed in the operating room under C-arm image guidance (X-ray or fluoroscopy), ensuring accuracy, safety, and optimal outcomes requiring only minutes to complete with minimal recovery time.

Over the past five years, RAK Hospital has performed several hundred interventional pain procedures, achieving long-term relief in 80–90% of patients, a success rate that far exceeds the 50–60% global average.

"This level of success comes from precision diagnosis, image-guided accuracy, and individualized treatment planning," explains Dr Kurisinkal. "We first identify the exact pain generator — whether it's a disc, a facet joint, or a sacroiliac joint — and then apply the most targeted therapy possible. For many patients who have lived on painkillers for months or years, often harming their kidneys in the process, these treatments can be life-changing."

Patients routinely report significant pain reduction lasting from six months to several years. In one remarkable case, a European resident remained pain-free for four years following a single intervention, a testament to the life-transforming potential of these advanced techniques.

RAK Hospital's approach doesn't stop at intervention. Each patient receives guidance on lifestyle modification — quitting smoking, improving posture, strengthening the core, and avoiding unsafe lifting habits to ensure long-term success. "When patients pair these targeted procedures with healthy lifestyle habits, the results are truly transformative," adds Dr Kurisinkal.

Moreover, these procedures are typically covered by insurance and performed without overnight hospitalization. With its multidisciplinary team of pain specialists, radiologists, physiotherapists and rehabilitation experts, RAK Hospital has become the leading centre for advanced pain interventions in the Northern Emirates offering UAE residents' real, lasting solutions to chronic back pain.