Moriarty Chiropractic Offers Options to Opioids for Pain Relief

Opioids. Back Pain. Treatment Options. Chiropractic has a place in managing and relieving pain that shouldn’t be ignored. Primary care physicians don’t feel very confident treating musculoskeletal pain. (1) Family practitioners are the leading prescribers of opioids. (2) Meanwhile, who takes care of 40% of pain patients? Chiropractors! (1) Your Nashua chiropractor at Moriarty Chiropractic sees many pain patients and relieves a good deal of Nashua back pain often exclusive of opioids.

STATISTICS ON OPIOIDS FOR PAIN

These statistics are based on a large study of 478,981 freshly diagnosed, “opiate-naïve” patients who begin taking opiates for pain relief. (2)

• 40.4% of pain patients received opioid prescriptions for the first time inside the first year of pain but only 4% met the requirement for long-term use.
• Family practice doctors are the most common first prescribers of opiates for pain whose risk of prescribing these early in the pain process is 24.4% while those patients then have a 2% risk of long-term, continued opiate use.  
• Patients who look for care from emergency medicine doctors (43.1%) or urgent care facility (40.8%) are most certainly to be prescribed opiates early in their pain cycle.
• Patients diagnosed initially by a pain management doctor or physical medicine and rehab provider have a higher risk of long-term opioid use by 6.7% and 3.4%, respectively.

Moriarty Chiropractic welcomes pain patients to seek Nashua chiropractic care sooner than later!

PHYSICIANS WHO TREAT PAIN

Primary care physicians (52%), pain physicians (2%), chiropractors (40%), acupuncturists (7%) treat chronic pain patients. Primary care physicians are the least likely physicians to feel confident treating musculoskeletal and neuropathic pain. (1) Chiropractors like yours at Moriarty Chiropractic confidently use non-drug management and/or co-management with other healthcare personnel for the pain relief and pain control for Nashua back pain patients.

CHIROPRACTIC’S PLACE IN PAIN CARE

Moriarty Chiropractic ponders why chiropractors aren’t more readily thought of in the process for Nashua pain relief, especially Nashua back pain relief. Chiropractic services incorporate spinal manipulation (one of the highest recommended types of care for back pain by the American Pain Society and the American College of Physicians (3)), exercise, and nutrition. What prevents some medical doctors from considering nutrition? A recent article states the reason in its title: “Nutrition: Push For Doctors To Learn Nutrition: Many Graduate Without Training.” It also shares that patients believe their medical doctor knows about nutrition. (4) And that’s fine if healthcare professionals coordinated care along their lines of expertise, acknowledging that each has a role in the care of the pain patient and has the best welfare of the patient at heart. Chiropractors are well skilled in non-surgical and non-drug care of pain, back pain, and spine pain.

COORDINATING CARE

Knowing that a healthcare provider’s profession influences his/her treatment recommendations, guidelines for Nashua back pain patient care are established in an attempt to apply the expertise maximally. Interdisciplinary care challenges differences among professions and their recommendation standards so that a patient gets a consistent therapy message with current treatment guidelines. Activity messages do vary by profession though: nurses were more restrictive in their recommendations of activity; physicians were more in line with guidelines; physiotherapists recommended much more activity but less work activity than physicians. (5) Moriarty Chiropractic works with other local Nashua healthcare providers for patient care, appreciating their expertise and involvement in Nashua back pain patients’ return to activities that they like to do.

CONTACT Moriarty Chiropractic

Schedule a Nashua chiropractic appointment with Moriarty Chiropractic for interdisciplinary care of your pain. Your Nashua chiropractor is ready and willing to work with fellow Nashua healthcare providers and to share with you options on managing your back pain beyond and/or alongside opioid drug care.