Young Chiropractic Treats the Patient Not the MRI
Why do patients have back surgery? Pain. What conditions do they suffer with most that leads them to back surgery? Spinal stenosis. Spondylolisthesis. What symptoms do they want to get rid of? Butt pain. Leg pain. Back pain. Young Chiropractic is here as your first stop to avoid back surgery or, for some, the last stop. For many back-related-pain patients, Easley chiropractic care does the trick and averts back surgery.
BACK PAIN SYMPTOMS
Back pain patients report all sorts of painful and irritating symptoms: leg pain, numb toe(s), painful thighs, gluteal pain. (The saying that something is a “pain in the butt” is a preceise description of some back pain patients’ pain! It is a more radicular issue than degenerative change of facet joints. (1)) And lumbar spinal stenosis is the most common cause for back surgery in the US for adults. A research study of stenosis patients who have withstood at least 3 years of pain revealed that manual therapy and individualized exercise helped the most patients get more than 30% improvement in symptoms and 20% in function. (2) Our use of the Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management aims for at least 50% relief in 30 days with many patients finding 60%, 70%, 80% and 90% quicker than that! Young Chiropractic knows Easley back pain sufferers who would celebrate with non-surgical relief like that!
BACK SURGERY: NECESSITY, COST AND IMAGING
Just how many back-pain sufferers with spinal stenosis or spondylolisthesis must have surgery? 0.8%. This comes from a study of 497,822 patients! The surgeon authors of this paper suggested doing decompression surgery without or with fusion earlier to lower the cost of non-operative treatment. (3) Oh my! The cost of a fusion in 2006 was $40,000 (4) and $80,000 to $100,000 in 2013, making back pain the foremost cause of disability in the world before 290 other conditions. (5) [Chiropractic is reported to be just 2.9% of the expense of back pain management. (6)] Over-imaging has added expense to the treatment of back pain: 1 in 4 (25%) of patients who go to a primary care doctors and 1 in 3 (33%) who go to the emergency room received imaging. (7) And what does imaging add to patient care and clinical outcome? Interesting question. There is no correlation between MRI findings for stenosis and the severity of pain, quality of life, depression or anxiety. (8, 9) What does enhance patient care and clinical outcome? Collaboration between physicians – surgical and non-surgical spine experts – helps chronic back pain patients recover in terms of pain as well as socially and mentally. (10) Young Chiropractic invites such collaboration with you and your healthcare team! We want you to feel better!
CONTACT Young Chiropractic
Listen to this PODCAST by Dr. Kurt Olding on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson. Dr. Olding discusses lumbar spinal stenosis care with Cox® Technic that allowed a woman to continue living life her way!
Schedule a non-surgical Easley chiropractic care appointment with Young Chiropractic today. Physical, mental and emotional pain relief may be eased and back surgery avoided with gentle, safe chiropractic care at Young Chiropractic where patient care is based on the patient not the MRI!
