Aurora Chiropractic Center Offers Options to Opioids for Pain Relief

Opioids. Back Pain. Treatment Options. Chiropractic has a place in managing and relieving pain that shouldn’t be overlooked. Primary care physicians aren’t very confident in treating musculoskeletal pain. (1) Family practitioners are the leading prescribers of opioids. (2) Meanwhile, who treats 40% of pain patients? Chiropractors! (1) Your Juneau chiropractor at Aurora Chiropractic Center sees many pain patients and eases plenty of Juneau back pain often without opioids.

STATISTICS ON OPIOIDS FOR PAIN

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

• 40.4% of pain patients accepted opioid prescriptions initially within a year of pain but only 4% met the requirement for long-term use.
• Family practice doctors are the most common 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.

Aurora Chiropractic Center invites pain patients to seek Juneau chiropractic care sooner than later!

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 treating musculoskeletal and neuropathic pain. (1) Chiropractors like yours at Aurora Chiropractic Center confidently use non-drug management and/or co-management with other providers for the pain relief and pain control for Juneau back pain patients.

CHIROPRACTIC’S PLACE IN PAIN CARE

Aurora Chiropractic Center wonders why chiropractors are not more readily considered in the process for Juneau pain relief, especially Juneau back pain relief. Chiropractic services incorporate 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 knows about nutrition. (4) And that is ok if healthcare professionals coordinated care 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 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 Juneau back pain patient care are established in an attempt to utilize the expertise maximally. 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 consistent with guidelines; physiotherapists recommended much more activity but less work activity than physicians. (5) Aurora Chiropractic Center collaborates with other local Juneau healthcare providers for patient care, appreciating their expertise and contribution to Juneau back pain patients’ return to activities that they like to do.

CONTACT Aurora Chiropractic Center

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