Richmond 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 do for back pain patients who visit the ER for help. It is a dilemma for them, especially since nearly 3 million such patients with undifferentiated musculoskeletal low back pain choose 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 Richmond ER do? How can an ER doctor deliver higher value care? (2) Imaging and medication. What can the Richmond chiropractic back pain specialist offer? Spinal manipulation and nutrients. Chiropractic has published about successful management of back pain.
EMERGENCY ROOM: IMAGING
The ER performs lots of imaging. One in 3 patients who visit the emergency room for back pain (compared to 1 in 4 who visit a primary care physician) has imaging done: simple imaging 26%, complex imaging 8.2%. (3) Today’s imaging guidelines 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 letting the ER doctors know that they have been using 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 studied all sorts of pain medication combinations ER doctors have used to figure out what is effective. What have they discovered? Stronger pain medication options don’t 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 for emergency room patients with acute musculoskeletal injuries. (8) As a matter of fact, 48% of back pain patients who go to an emergency room for their back pain still had functional impairment 3 months later as well as 42% said they had moderate or severe pain. 46% report using 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 physicians and their patients but not always for chiropractors and their chiropractic back pain patients. The Richmond chiropractic back pain specialist at Johnson Chiropractic is armed with the best of chiropractic care for Richmond back pain relief.
CHIROPRACTIC: MANIPULATION AND NUTRIENTS
Your Richmond chiropractor understands. 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 Richmond chiropractor’s confidence that back pain relief and management for many otherwise frustrated Richmond back pain patients is possible.
Listen to this PODCAST with Dr. Michael Schneider on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson who describes the goal of the primary spine physician who would be the physician to seek out for back pain issues.
CONTACT Johnson Chiropractic
Schedule a Richmond chiropractic visit with Johnson Chiropractic especially if an ER trip hasn’t resulted in the pain relief you wanted. Richmond chiropractic care has shared a well-documented and researched way to manage back pain.
