While 79% of consumers say they are in "excellent" or "good" health, a recent study has found that many people are searching for pain relief.

A national telephone survey conducted by Media General Research in December revealed that consumers rely most on drugs for pain relief -- but that chiropractic is the number one natural treatment choice for most pains and injuries.

The survey found that 42% of consumers have experienced back pain during the past year. The number one choice for treating this pain was medicine, and the number one natural treatment choice was chiropractic care. Of those patients who saw a chiropractor, 91% rated their care as "very" or "somewhat" effective.

Sixty percent of consumers said they would go to a physician if they experienced an injury causing pain to their back or neck, and 23% said they would go to a chiropractor -- more than physical therapists (7%), massage therapists (4%) and acupuncturists (1%) combined.

While both back and neck pain are associated frequently with chiropractic care, the survey revealed another emerging area for chiropractic -- headache treatment. Drug use was the most popular treatment for those who had experienced headaches in the past year (47%), and the number two choice was chiropractic care.

One of the premier studies on headache treatment was completed last year by researchers at Duke University. The results showed that chiropractic was highly effective for patients with tension headaches and that those patients undergoing chiropractic care experienced longer-term pain relief and fewer side effects than those treated by the antidepressant amitriptyline.

Chiropractic is at the forefront of the emerging complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) field. In 1998, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that more than 40% of the public used CAM and that chiropractic was the most frequently used drug-free treatment.

Chiropractic has been practiced in the United States for more than 100 years, and more than 3 million people visit one of the 60,000 chiropractors in the country every year.