Minster Chiropractic Healthy News - March 2018

Healthcare professions are setting forth recommendations for practitioners to follow when delivering health care with hopes to stimulate conversations between patients and their healthcare providers and among healthcare providers themselves. Your Minster chiropractor at Minster Chiropractic Center is always ready for such a conversation about Minster back pain. Back pain is a huge health issue upsetting 80% of us in Minster at some point in life. Back pain is handled by many kinds of physicians in many kinds of professional societies. Their societal recommendations are comparable concerning imaging (Don’t perform in the first six weeks of pain unless there are “red flags.”), testing non-surgical care before imaging and/or referring for back surgery, and progressing the patient care from passive care to active care. More specifically, the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation recommends not ordering repeat epidural steroid injections without checking for the reaction to the last one and not prescribing opioid drugs for acute disabling low back pain without assessment and a trial of other alternatives. (2) The American Chiropractic Association recommends not ordering repeat imaging to see how the patient is responding, not obtaining spinal imaging for acute low back pain in the first 6 weeks of pain unless red flags are present, and staying away from long term use of passive care but instead shift the patient to active care. (3) The American College of Emergency Room Physicians recommends avoiding lumbar spine imaging in non-traumatic back pain unless there are severe or progressive neurological deficits or a suspicion of an underlying issue. (4) The American College of Physicians recommends not obtaining imaging studies in patients with non-specific low back pain. (5) The North American Spine Society recommends not suggesting bed rest for more than 48 hours for low back pain, not ordering EMG studies to figure out the cause of spine pain, and not doing advanced spinal imaging (ex MRI) within the first 6 weeks of non-specific acute low back pain with no red flags. (6) The Danish Health Authority recommends not sending patients for back surgery for a lumbar disc herniation with radiculopathy except if the severe and debilitating back pain continues for 12 weeks in spite of non-surgical treatment. (7) It’s up to you, the Minster back pain patient or concerned loved one, to choose wisely the course of care for back pain relief. Use these professions’ recommendations for back pain care to start a conversation with your Minster chiropractor, your Minster back pain specialist, at Minster Chiropractic Center as you choose the type of care appropriate for your Minster back pain relief.

 

TIP OF THE MONTH: Try Non-Surgical Interventions for Minster Back Pain

Common Minster non-surgical interventions for Minster back pain relief are pain medications, exercise, manual manipulation, massage, and heat/ice. (8, 9) Included in the top non-surgical interventions to try before Minster back surgery is spinal manipulation (10) of which 90% (11) is delivered by chiropractors. The Cox Technic System of Spine Care – spinal manipulation with exercise, nutrition and passive care for pain and inflammation reduction with increased active care importance as pain reduces – matches Choosing Wisely recommendations as it seeks 50% relief of pain within 30 days of care (which is more than the 30% or greater improvement in self-reported pain and function sought by medicine [12]) before advanced imaging or surgical referral without red flags. Bring your Minster back pain to your Minster chiropractor’s office! Make it your first Minster back pain relief healthcare stop!