Low Back Pain, Doctors And Opioids
Two articles that just came out, that I just read, Both explore a similar topic. The subject of these articles is the utilization of opioids for low back pain. That is a subject that is near and dear to my heart because chiropractors and me, in particular, help people who have low back pain.
The first article here tells us 115 Americans die every day from opioids abuse. That’s prescription opioids. That number doesn’t include the people who are dying because they get hooked on other stuff after starting opioids.
It also tells us that if you see a chiropractor when you first have low back pain as opposed to another kind of doctor, you are 64% less likely to have an opioid prescribed in your future. That is huge because we know that starting opioid is a fast gateway to addiction — a very short period of time for some people.
The next study looks at what happens depending on the kind of doctor you see when you first have low back pain, the first doctor, you see. If you see a chiropractor, you have a 90% decreased chance of being prescribed opioids in the short term. That’s very, very, very different than most other kinds of doctors. Much, much better numbers.
In fact, the American College of Physicians recommends that you see a chiropractor or someone who does conservative care before you take medication. The CDC, the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, also issued guidelines that recommend seeing a chiropractor or get conservative care before you start a pharmaceutical intervention. That is because what we do works. It works really well, and we are drug-free, no medications, no drugs. The fact that chiropractic care is impeccably safe is the icing on the cake.
Studies showing the effectiveness of chiropractic care for low back pain are abundant and amazing. These latest additions to the scientific body of work supporting chiropractic care are showing that not only what we do really works well, but also help our patients avoid the whole opioid disaster. If know someone who has back pain, send them in. I look forward to seeing them. Give us a call.
References:
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/9/9/e028633.abstract
https://academic.oup.com/painmedicine/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/pm/pnz219/5575223