Emergency room physicians are trying
to figure out what is best to offer back pain
patients who visit the ER for help. It’s a quandry
for them, particularly since nearly 3 million such
patients with undifferentiated musculoskeletal low back pain choose 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 Pensacola ER doc help?
How can an ER doctor provide higher value care? (2) Imaging and
medication. What can the Pensacola chiropractic back pain specialist offer?
Spinal manipulation and nutrients. Chiropractic has published about successful
management of back pain.
EMERGENCY ROOM: IMAGING
The ER performs a lot 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) has imaging ordered:
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 under
such care already? Probably not as only 34% of
patients who visit an ER share with 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
all sorts of pain medication combinations ER doctors have prescribed
to determine what is effective. What have
they discovered? Stronger pain medication options don’t
offer much of a difference. Adding baclofen, metaxalone, or tizanidine to
ibuprofen does not seem to enhance
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 reduce 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 visit an ER 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 issues for ER patients
with low back pain. (1) This may all be frustrating for emergency
department docs and their patients but not typically
for chiropractors and their chiropractic back pain patients. The
Pensacola chiropractic back pain specialist at Pensacola Spinal Rehab Center is
armed with the best of chiropractic care for
Pensacola back pain relief.
CHIROPRACTIC: MANIPULATION AND NUTRIENTS
Your Pensacola 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 boosts your Pensacola chiropractor’s confidence that back
pain relief and management for many otherwise frustrated Pensacola
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 turn to for back pain issues.
CONTACT Pensacola Spinal Rehab Center
Schedule a Pensacola chiropractic appointment
with Pensacola Spinal Rehab Center especially if an emergency department visit
has not resulted in the pain relief you hoped.
Pensacola chiropractic care has shared a well-documented
and researched way to manage back pain.