Connected 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 overlooked. Primary care physicians aren’t very confident in treating musculoskeletal pain. (1) Family practitioners are the largest prescribers of opioids. (2) Meanwhile, who treats 40% of pain patients? Chiropractors! (1) Your Elgin chiropractor at Connected Chiropractic takes care of many pain patients and eases a great deal of Elgin back pain often without opioids.

STATISTICS ON OPIOIDS FOR PAIN

The following stats are based on a large 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 for the first time inside the first year of pain but 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 look for 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 initially 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.

Connected Chiropractic welcomes pain patients to seek Elgin chiropractic care first!

PHYSICIANS WHO TREAT PAIN

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

CHIROPRACTIC’S PLACE IN PAIN CARE

Connected Chiropractic wonders why chiropractors aren’t more readily thought of in the process for Elgin pain relief, particularly Elgin back pain relief. Chiropractic services incorporate spinal manipulation (one of the highest recommended types 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 think their medical doctor understands nutrition. (4) And that’s ok if healthcare professionals collaborated along their lines of expertise, acknowledging that each offers value 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

Knowing that a healthcare provider’s profession influences his/her treatment recommendations, guidelines for Elgin back pain patient care are established in an attempt to apply the expertise fully. Interdisciplinary care challenges differences among professions and their recommendation standards so that a patient gets 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 aligned with guidelines; physiotherapists recommended much more activity but less work activity than physicians. (5) Connected Chiropractic works with other local Elgin healthcare providers for patient care, valuing their expertise and involvement in Elgin back pain patients’ return to activities of daily living that make each day better.

CONTACT Connected Chiropractic

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