Lombardy Chiropractic Clinic Offers Options to Opioids for Pain Relief

Opioids. Back Pain. Treatment Options. Chiropractic has a role in managing and easing pain that should not be ignored. Primary care physicians do not feel much confidence 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 Augusta chiropractor at Lombardy Chiropractic Clinic treats many pain patients and eases a great deal of Augusta back pain often exclusive of opioids.

STATISTICS ON OPIOIDS FOR PAIN

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

• 40.4% of pain patients obtained opioid prescriptions initially 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 certainly to be prescribed opiates early in their pain cycle.
• Patients diagnosed first 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.

Lombardy Chiropractic Clinic welcomes pain patients to seek Augusta chiropractic care first!

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 Lombardy Chiropractic Clinic confidently offer non-drug management and/or co-management with other healthcare personnel for the pain relief and pain control for Augusta back pain patients.

CHIROPRACTIC’S PLACE IN PAIN CARE

Lombardy Chiropractic Clinic ponders why chiropractors aren’t more readily considered in the process for Augusta pain relief, especially Augusta 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 notes that patients think their medical doctor knows about nutrition. (4) And that’s ok if healthcare professionals coordinated care sharing their 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

Recognizing that a healthcare provider’s profession effects his/her treatment recommendations, guidelines for Augusta back pain patient care are developed to try to apply 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 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) Lombardy Chiropractic Clinic collaborates with other local Augusta healthcare providers for patient care, valuing their expertise and contribution to Augusta back pain patients’ return to activities that they like to do.

CONTACT Lombardy Chiropractic Clinic

Schedule a Augusta chiropractic appointment with Lombardy Chiropractic Clinic for interdisciplinary care of your pain. Your Augusta chiropractor is ready and willing to work with fellow Augusta healthcare providers and to offer you options on how to manage your back pain beyond and/or alongside opioid drug care.