Augusta 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 is a quandry for them, particularly since nearly 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 Augusta ER doc help? How can an ER doctor deliver higher value care? (2) Imaging and medication. What can the Augusta chiropractic back pain specialist offer? Spinal manipulation and nutrients. Chiropractic has published about successful management of back pain.
EMERGENCY ROOM: IMAGING
The ER does lots of imaging. One in 3 patients who visit the emergency department for back pain (compared to 1 in 4 who visit a primary care physician) gets imaging done: simple imaging 26%, complex imaging 8.2%. (3) Today’s imaging recommendations don’t 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 under such care already? Probably not as only 34% of patients who visit an ER share with 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 looked at 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 doesn’t appear to enhance function or pain any more than placebo plus ibuprofen by 1 week after an ED visit for acute low back pain. (6,7) Combining ibuprofen and acetaminophen didn’t decrease 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 emergency room 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 day prior. There are short and long-term problems 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 Augusta chiropractic back pain specialist at Lombardy Chiropractic Clinic is prepared with the best of chiropractic care for Augusta back pain relief.
CHIROPRACTIC: MANIPULATION AND NUTRIENTS
Your Augusta chiropractor understands. Skill 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 Augusta chiropractor’s confidence that back pain relief and management for many otherwise frustrated Augusta back pain patients is possible.
Listen to this PODCAST with Dr. Michael Schneider on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson who shares the goal of the primary spine physician who would be the physician to turn to for back pain issues.
CONTACT Lombardy Chiropractic Clinic
Schedule a Augusta chiropractic appointment with Lombardy Chiropractic Clinic especially if an emergency department trip hasn’t produced the pain relief you hoped. Augusta chiropractic care has figured out a well-documented and researched way to manage back pain.
