Young Chiropractic Offers Options to Opioids for Pain Relief

Opioids. Back Pain. Treatment Options. Chiropractic has a role in managing and relieving pain that shouldn’t be ignored. Primary care physicians do not feel very confident treating musculoskeletal pain. (1) Family practitioners are the largest prescribers of opioids. (2) Meanwhile, who takes care of 40% of pain patients? Chiropractors! (1) Your Easley chiropractor at Young Chiropractic sees many pain patients and eases a great deal of Easley back pain often with no opioids.

STATISTICS ON OPIOIDS FOR PAIN

These statistics are founded on a huge study of 478,981 freshly diagnosed, “opiate-naïve” patients who start utilizing opiates for pain relief. (2)

• 40.4% of pain patients accepted opioid prescriptions initially inside the first year of pain while only 4% met the requirement for long-term use.
• Family practice doctors are the most common first prescribers of opiates for pain whose risk of prescribing these early in the pain process is 24.4% while those patients then have a 2% risk of long-term, continued opiate use.  
• Patients who seek care from emergency medicine doctors (43.1%) or urgent care facility (40.8%) are most certainly to be prescribed opiates early in their pain cycle.
• Patients diagnosed initially by a pain management doctor or physical medicine and rehab provider have a higher risk of long-term opioid use by 6.7% and 3.4%, respectively.

Young Chiropractic invites pain patients to seek Easley chiropractic care first!

PHYSICIANS WHO TREAT PAIN

Primary care physicians (52%), pain physicians (2%), chiropractors (40%), acupuncturists (7%) take care of chronic pain patients. Primary care physicians are the least likely physicians to feel confident treating musculoskeletal and neuropathic pain. (1) Chiropractors like yours at Young Chiropractic confidently offer non-drug management and/or co-management with other healthcare personnel for the pain relief and pain control for Easley back pain patients.

CHIROPRACTIC’S PLACE IN PAIN CARE

Young Chiropractic ponders why chiropractors aren’t more readily thought of in the process for Easley pain relief, especially Easley back pain relief. Chiropractic services intergrate spinal manipulation (one of the highest recommended types of care for back pain by the American Pain Society and the American College of Physicians (3)), exercise, and nutrition. What stops some medical doctors from considering nutrition? A recent article states the reason in its title: “Nutrition: Push For Doctors To Learn Nutrition: Many Graduate Without Training.” It also notes that patients think their medical doctor understands nutrition. (4) And that is ok if healthcare professionals coordinated care sharing their expertise, acknowledging that each offers value in the care of the pain patient and has the best welfare of the patient fundamentally. Chiropractors are well skilled in non-surgical and non-drug care of pain, back pain, and spine pain.

COORDINATING CARE

Recognizing that a healthcare provider’s profession effects his/her treatment recommendations, guidelines for Easley back pain patient care are developed to try to use the expertise fully. Interdisciplinary care challenges differences among professions and their recommendation standards so that a patient receives a consistent therapy message with current treatment guidelines. Activity messages do differ by profession though: nurses were more restrictive in their recommendations of activity; physicians were more consistent with guidelines; physiotherapists recommended much more activity but less work activity than physicians. (5) Young Chiropractic works with other local Easley healthcare providers for patient care, appreciating their expertise and contribution to Easley back pain patients’ return to activities of daily living that make each day more pleasant.

CONTACT Young Chiropractic

Schedule a Easley chiropractic appointment with Young Chiropractic for interdisciplinary care of your pain. Your Easley chiropractor is willing and able to work with fellow Easley healthcare providers and to offer you options on managing your back pain beyond and/or alongside opioid drug care.