Nashua Chiropractic Care Instead of an Emergency Room Visit and Pain Meds for Back Pain

Emergency room physicians are working on figuring out what is best to do for back pain patients who come to the ER for help. It’s a dilemma for them, especially since nearly 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 Nashua ER doc help? How can an ER doctor deliver higher value care? (2) Imaging and medication. What can the Nashua chiropractic back pain specialist provide? Spinal manipulation and nutrients. Chiropractic has published about successful management of back pain.

EMERGENCY ROOM: IMAGING

The ER does a lot of imaging. One in 3 patients who go to the emergency room for back pain (compared to 1 in 4 who seek care from a primary care physician) has imaging done: simple imaging 26%, complex imaging 8.2%. (3) Today’s imaging guidelines do not support this as they recommend holding 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? Not likely 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

Pain relief, it seems, is what they can offer. Researchers have looked at a variety of pain medication combinations ER doctors have used to figure out what is effective. What have they found? Stronger pain medication options do not offer much of a difference. Adding baclofen, metaxalone, or tizanidine to ibuprofen does not seem to up 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 did not 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% 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 problems 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 Nashua chiropractic back pain specialist at Moriarty Chiropractic is equipped with the best of chiropractic care for Nashua back pain relief.

CHIROPRACTIC: MANIPULATION AND NUTRIENTS

Your Nashua 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 Nashua chiropractor’s confidence that back pain relief and management for many otherwise frustrated Nashua back pain patients is possible.

Listen to this PODCAST with Dr. Michael Schneider on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson who shares the role of the primary spine physician who would be the physician to seek out for back pain issues.

CONTACT Moriarty Chiropractic

Schedule a Nashua chiropractic visit with Moriarty Chiropractic especially if an ER trip hasn’t produced the pain relief you wanted. Nashua chiropractic care has shared a well-documented and researched way to manage back pain.