Emergency room physicians are trying
to figure out what is best to offer back pain
patients who come to the ER for help. It’s a quandry
for them, particularly since nearly 3 million such
patients with undifferentiated musculoskeletal low back pain go
to the emergency room for help annually! (1) Unless there is
cauda equina syndrome demanding surgery or an infection, pain is the issue. How best can a Auburn ER doc help?
How can an ER doctor provide higher value care? (2) Imaging and
medication. What can the Auburn chiropractic back pain specialist offer?
Spinal manipulation and nutrients. Chiropractic has published about successfully managing back pain.
EMERGENCY ROOM: IMAGING
The ER orders plenty 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 ordered:
simple imaging 26%, complex imaging 8.2%. (3) Today’s imaging guidelines
do not support this as they say to hold off
on imaging for 4-6 weeks of conservative care before imaging. (4) Maybe patients
are telling ER doctors that they have been using
such care already? Probably not since only 34% of
patients who go to 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
a variety of pain medication combinations ER doctors have used
to figure out what works best. 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 improve
function or pain any more than placebo plus ibuprofen within a week
after an ED visit for acute low back pain. (6,7) Mixing
ibuprofen and acetaminophen did not reduce 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 visit an emergency room for their back pain continued to experience 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 emergency
department physicians and their patients but not always
for chiropractors and their chiropractic back pain patients. The
Auburn chiropractic back pain specialist at Dr. Le's Chiropractic & Wellness, L.L.C. is
armed with the best of chiropractic care for
Auburn back pain relief.
CHIROPRACTIC: MANIPULATION AND NUTRIENTS
Your Auburn 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 Auburn chiropractor’s confidence that back
pain relief and management for many otherwise frustrated Auburn
back pain patients is promising.
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 Dr. Le's Chiropractic & Wellness, L.L.C.
Schedule a Auburn chiropractic visit
with Dr. Le's Chiropractic & Wellness, L.L.C. especially if an emergency department trip
hasn’t produced the pain relief you hoped.
Auburn chiropractic care has shared a well-documented
and researched way to manage back pain.