Carisoprodol vs. Diazepam
In a double-blind study carisoprodol was found to be superior to diazepam in the treatment of patients with at least moderately severe low back pain and spasm of no longer than seven days duration.
The first RCT (80 people) found that carisoprodol significantly increased overall improvement compared with diazepam but found no significant difference in pain at 7 days (improvement rated as very good or excellent; 70% with carisoprodol v 45% with diazepam; pain on 100 mm visual analogue scale: 58 mm with carisoprodol v 48 mm with diazepam; P values not reported in the review)
Carisoprodol was more effective than diazepam in overall relief of acute LBP (70% vs. 45%)
In this head-to-head trial, the overall incidence of adverse reactions was higher in the diazepam treated group but was not of statistical significance.