Sitka Chiropractic Healthy News - March 2018

Healthcare professions are establishing recommendations for practitioners to follow when dispensing health care with hopes to stimulate conversations between patients and their healthcare providers and among healthcare providers themselves. Your Sitka chiropractor at Arctic Chiropractic, Sitka is always ready for such a conversation about Sitka back pain. Back pain is a huge health issue upsetting 80% of us in Sitka at some point in life. Back pain is dealt with by many kinds of physicians in many types of professional societies. Their societal recommendations are comparable concerning imaging (Do not order within the first 6 weeks of pain unless there are “red flags.”), trying non-surgical care ahead of imaging and/or referring for back surgery, and moving the patient care from passive care to active care. More precisely, the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation recommends not ordering repeat epidural steroid injections without checking for the response to the latter one and not prescribing opioid drugs for acute disabling low back pain without assessment and a test of other alternatives. (2) The American Chiropractic Association recommends not performing repeat imaging to monitor progress of care, not obtaining spinal imaging for acute low back pain in the first 6 weeks of pain unless red flags are noted, and avoiding long term usage of passive care but instead move the patient to active care. (3) The American College of Emergency Room Physicians recommends sidestepping 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 advocating 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 getting advanced spinal imaging (ex MRI) within the first 6 weeks of non-specific acute low back pain without red flags. (6) The Danish Health Authority recommends not sending patients for back surgery for a lumbar disc herniation with radiculopathy unless the severe and debilitating back pain continues for 12 weeks despite non-surgical treatment. (7) It is up to you, the Sitka 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 begin a conversation with your Sitka chiropractor, your Sitka back pain specialist, at Arctic Chiropractic, Sitka as you choose the type of care proper for your Sitka back pain relief.

 

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

Common Sitka non-surgical interventions for Sitka 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 Sitka back surgery is spinal manipulation (10) of which 90% (11) is performed 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 emphasis as pain reduces – matches Choosing Wisely recommendations as it works toward 50% relief of pain within 30 days of care (which is more than the 30% or greater improvement in self-reported pain and function pursued by medicine [12]) before advanced imaging or surgical referral without red flags. Bring your Sitka back pain to Arctic Chiropractic, Sitka! Make it your first Sitka back pain relief healthcare stop!