Easley Chiropractic Care Instead of an Emergency Room Visit and Pain Meds for Back Pain
Emergency room physicians are working on figuring out what is optimal to offer back pain patients who come to the ER for help. It’s a quandry for them, particularly since almost 3 million such patients with undifferentiated musculoskeletal low back pain choose the emergency room for help annually! (1) Unless there is cauda equina syndrome demanding surgery or an infection, pain is the issue. How best can a Easley ER doc help? How can an ER doctor deliver higher value care? (2) Imaging and medication. What can the Easley chiropractic back pain specialist provide? Spinal manipulation and nutrients. Chiropractic has published about successfully managing back pain.
EMERGENCY ROOM: IMAGING
The ER does plenty of imaging. One in 3 patients who visit the emergency department for back pain (as opposed to 1 in 4 who go to a primary care physician) has imaging done: simple imaging 26%, complex imaging 8.2%. (3) Today’s imaging recommendations do not support this as they say to hold off on imaging for 4-6 weeks of conservative care before imaging. (4) Maybe patients are telling ER doctors that they have been using such care already? Probably not since only 34% of patients who visit an ER tell the emergency department physician that they get healthcare options like chiropractors, massage therapy, acupuncture and the like. (5) What about the pain?
EMERGENCY ROOM: MEDICATIONS
Relief for the pain is what they focus on. Researchers have studied a variety of pain medication combinations ER doctors have used to figure out what is effective. What have they found? Stronger pain medication options do not offer much of a difference. Adding baclofen, metaxalone, or tizanidine to ibuprofen does not seem to up function or pain any more than placebo plus ibuprofen by 1 week after an ED visit for acute low back pain. (6,7) Mixing ibuprofen and acetaminophen didn’t reduce pain scores or the need for other analgesic pain meds compared with either ibuprofen or acetaminophen alone in emergency room patients with acute musculoskeletal injuries. (8) As a matter of fact, 48% of back pain patients who visit an ER for their back pain still had functional impairment 3 months later as well as 42% reported moderate or severe pain. 46% say they’ve used some type of analgesic pain reliever in the last day. There are short and long-term issues for ER patients with low back pain. (1) This may all be frustrating for ER docs and their patients but not typically for chiropractors and their chiropractic back pain patients. The Easley chiropractic back pain specialist at Young Chiropractic is armed with the best of chiropractic care for Easley back pain relief.
CHIROPRACTIC: MANIPULATION AND NUTRIENTS
Your Easley chiropractor gets it. Familiarity with chiropractic spinal manipulation via The Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management with the addition of nutrition like chondroitin sulfate, glucosamine sulfate and curcurmin and turmeric supports your Easley chiropractor’s confidence that back pain relief and management for many otherwise frustrated Easley back pain patients is promising.
Listen to this PODCAST with Dr. Michael Schneider on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson who describes the role of the primary spine physician who would be the physician to seek out for back pain issues.
CONTACT Young Chiropractic
Schedule a Easley chiropractic appointment with Young Chiropractic especially if an ER visit has not produced the pain relief you wanted. Easley chiropractic care has shared a well-documented and researched way to manage back pain.
