Fort Wayne Chiropractic Care Instead of an Emergency Room Visit and Pain Meds for Back Pain
Emergency room physicians are working on figuring out what is best to do for back pain patients who choose the ER for help. It is a quandry for them, especially since nearly 3 million such patients with undifferentiated musculoskeletal low back pain go to the emergency room for help each year! (1) Unless there is cauda equina syndrome demanding surgery or an infection, pain is the issue. What can a Fort Wayne ER do? How can an ER doctor deliver higher value care? (2) Imaging and medication. What can the Fort Wayne chiropractic back pain specialist provide? Spinal manipulation and nutrients. Chiropractic has published about successfully managing back pain.
EMERGENCY ROOM: IMAGING
The ER performs a lot of imaging. One in 3 patients who go to the emergency department for back pain (compared to 1 in 4 who go to a primary care physician) gets imaging done: simple imaging 26%, complex imaging 8.2%. (3) Today’s imaging guidelines don’t support this as they recommend holding off on imaging for 4-6 weeks of conservative care before imaging. (4) Maybe patients are letting the ER doctors know that they have been under such care already? Not likely since 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 studied all sorts of pain medication combinations ER doctors have prescribed to see 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 go to an ER for their back pain still had functional impairment 3 months later as well as 42% reported moderate or severe pain. 46% report using some type of analgesic pain reliever in the day prior. There are short and long-term issues for ER patients with low back pain. (1) This might be frustrating for emergency department docs and their patients but not always for chiropractors and their chiropractic back pain patients. The Fort Wayne chiropractic back pain specialist at Cox Chiropractic Medicine Inc is armed with the best of chiropractic care for Fort Wayne back pain relief.
CHIROPRACTIC: MANIPULATION AND NUTRIENTS
Your Fort Wayne chiropractor gets it. 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 boosts your Fort Wayne chiropractor’s confidence that back pain relief and management for many otherwise frustrated Fort Wayne 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 role of the primary spine physician who would be the physician to seek out for back pain issues.
CONTACT Cox Chiropractic Medicine Inc
Schedule a Fort Wayne chiropractic visit with Cox Chiropractic Medicine Inc especially if an ER visit hasn’t resulted in the pain relief you wanted. Fort Wayne chiropractic care has figured out a well-documented and researched way to manage back pain.
