Apple Country Chiropractic Offers Options to Opioids for Pain Relief

Opioids. Back Pain. Treatment Options. Chiropractic has a place in managing and easing pain that shouldn’t be ignored. Primary care physicians don’t feel much confidence treating musculoskeletal pain. (1) Family practitioners are the leading prescribers of opioids. (2) Meanwhile, who treats 40% of pain patients? Chiropractors! (1) Your Williamson chiropractor at Apple Country Chiropractic treats many pain patients and relieves a good deal of Williamson back pain often with no opioids.

STATISTICS ON OPIOIDS FOR PAIN

The following stats are based on a large study of 478,981 recently diagnosed, “opiate-naïve” patients who start utilizing opiates for pain relief. (2)

• 40.4% of pain patients accepted opioid prescriptions for the first time within a year of pain while only 4% met the requirement for long-term use.
• Family practice doctors are the most usual 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 seek care from emergency medicine doctors (43.1%) or urgent care facility (40.8%) are most likely to be prescribed opiates early in their pain cycle.
• Patients diagnosed first by a pain management doctor or physical medicine and rehab provider have an increased risk of long-term opioid use by 6.7% and 3.4%, respectively.

Apple Country Chiropractic invites pain patients to seek Williamson chiropractic care sooner than later!

PHYSICIANS WHO TREAT PAIN

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

CHIROPRACTIC’S PLACE IN PAIN CARE

Apple Country Chiropractic ponders why chiropractors are not more readily thought of in the process for Williamson pain relief, particularly Williamson back pain relief. Chiropractic services include spinal manipulation (one of the highest recommended forms of care for back pain by the American Pain Society and the American College of Physicians (3)), exercise, and nutrition. What stops 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 understands nutrition. (4) And that’s fine if healthcare professionals collaborated along their lines of expertise, acknowledging that each has a role in the care of the pain patient and has the best interest of the patient at heart. Chiropractors are proficient in non-surgical and non-drug care of pain, back pain, and spine pain.

COORDINATING CARE

Recognizing that a healthcare provider’s profession influences his/her treatment recommendations, guidelines for Williamson back pain patient care are developed in an attempt to use the expertise maximally. Interdisciplinary care challenges differences among professions and their recommendation standards so that a patient receives a consistent therapy message with current treatment guidelines. Activity messages do differ by profession though: nurses were more restrictive in their recommendations of activity; physicians were more consistent with guidelines; physiotherapists recommended much more activity but less work activity than physicians. (5) Apple Country Chiropractic collaborates with other local Williamson healthcare providers for patient care, valuing their expertise and involvement in Williamson back pain patients’ return to activities that they like to do.

CONTACT Apple Country Chiropractic

Schedule a Williamson chiropractic appointment with Apple Country Chiropractic for interdisciplinary care of your pain. Your Williamson chiropractor is willing and able to work with fellow Williamson healthcare providers and to give you options on how to manage your back pain beyond and/or alongside opioid drug care.