Emergency room physicians are trying
to figure out what is best to offer back pain
patients who come to the ER for help. It is a dilemma
for them, particularly since almost 3 million such
patients with undifferentiated musculoskeletal low back pain visit the emergency room for help each year! (1) Unless there is
cauda equina syndrome demanding surgery or an infection, pain is the issue. How best can a Sitka ER doc help?
How can an ER doctor provide higher value care? (2) Imaging and
medication. What can the Sitka chiropractic back pain specialist offer?
Spinal manipulation and nutrients. Chiropractic has published about successfully managing back pain.
EMERGENCY ROOM: IMAGING
The ER performs plenty of
imaging. One in 3 patients who go to the emergency room
for back pain (as opposed to 1 in 4 who visit a primary care physician) gets imaging performed:
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 under
such care already? Probably not as only 34% of
patients who visit an ER tell the emergency department
physician that they use 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 figure out what works best. What have
they discovered? Stronger pain medication options do not
offer much of a difference. Adding baclofen, metaxalone, or tizanidine to
ibuprofen does not seem to enhance
function or pain any more than placebo plus ibuprofen within a 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 ER for their back pain continued to experience 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 might be frustrating for emergency
department physicians and their patients but not typically
for chiropractors and their chiropractic back pain patients. The
Sitka chiropractic back pain specialist at Arctic Chiropractic, Sitka is
prepared with the best of chiropractic care for
Sitka back pain relief.
CHIROPRACTIC: MANIPULATION AND NUTRIENTS
Your Sitka 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 Sitka chiropractor’s confidence that back
pain relief and management for many otherwise frustrated Sitka
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 Arctic Chiropractic, Sitka
Schedule a Sitka chiropractic appointment
with Arctic Chiropractic, Sitka especially if an ER trip
hasn’t produced the pain relief you wanted.
Sitka chiropractic care has figured out a well-documented
and researched way to manage back pain.