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

Emergency room physicians are trying to figure out what is best to offer back pain patients who choose the ER for help. It is a quandry for them, particularly since almost 3 million such patients with undifferentiated musculoskeletal low back pain choose 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 Pflugerville ER doc help? How can an ER doctor provide higher value care? (2) Imaging and medication. What can the Pflugerville chiropractic back pain specialist provide? Spinal manipulation and nutrients. Chiropractic has published about successful management of back pain.

EMERGENCY ROOM: IMAGING

The ER does lots 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 done: simple imaging 26%, complex imaging 8.2%. (3) Today’s imaging guidelines don’t support this as they recommend holding 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 using such care already? Not likely since 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 studied a variety of pain medication combinations ER doctors have prescribed to determine what is effective. What have they found? Stronger pain medication options don’t 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) Combining ibuprofen and acetaminophen didn’t decrease 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% reported moderate or severe pain. 46% report using 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 may all be frustrating for emergency department physicians and their patients but not typically for chiropractors and their chiropractic back pain patients. The Pflugerville chiropractic back pain specialist at Pflugerville Wellness Center is armed with the best of chiropractic care for Pflugerville back pain relief.

CHIROPRACTIC: MANIPULATION AND NUTRIENTS

Your Pflugerville chiropractor understands. Experience 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 Pflugerville chiropractor’s confidence that back pain relief and management for many otherwise frustrated Pflugerville 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 Pflugerville Wellness Center

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