Effective Back Pain Treatment

We see many patients with back pain in our Asheville office, and Dr. Brent Myers has been able to provide a lot of them get relief with chiropractic care. At the same time, recovering from back pain doesn't necessarily mean having to make a choice between chiropractic care and medical therapy, as many people use both types of care with great outcomes.

Study Confirms Chiropractic and Medical Treatment Work Together

In a report published by the journal Spine researchers¹ looked at a group of active-duty military personnel between the ages of 18 and 35 who claimed both acute discomfort and limited function due to back pain. Some of the study participants received treatment via standard medical therapy, while the rest received chiropractic adjustments along with regular medical care, as researchers wanted to determine which group fared better.

The authors discovered that the group that received standard medical care combined with chiropractic scored "significantly better" than the group that got medical care alone; 73% reported positive benefits compared to just 17% of the medical treatment only group who reported the same amount of improvement. This was true regarding both pain and level of function at the two- and four-week marks.

Thus, combining these two forms of care can greatly benefit you--the patient--offering benefits when compared to medical care alone. However, while chiropractic care and medicine can work alongside each other, chiropractic offers some unique advantages over medical treatment.

Where Chiropractic Wins

Although it might seem as if each method plays a 50-50 role, there is one significant benefit that chiropractic has over medical treatment and that is in patient satisfaction. In fact, a study conducted at UCLA² that was printed in the American Journal of Public Health reports that, on average, chiropractic patients are generally more satisfied with their recovery than people undergoing medical treatment.

According to the researchers, the main aspects that patients favored over medical treatment were "self-care advice and explanation of treatment." This isn't surprising, as chiropractors tend to spend much more time advising their patients as to how they can improve their health on their own, as well as outlining more carefully what to expect from chiropractic.

Chiropractic Care Is a Natural Approach to Wellness

Certainly, the strategies associated with chiropractic are quite different than those offered with medical therapy, but a large amount of the distinction is the fact that chiropractic is a natural approach to health and wellness. In contrast to focusing on simply relieving the symptoms, chiropractic involves searching for the primary cause of your pain, which often results in greater improvement as you are addressing the problem at its source.

Additionally, while medication is sometimes helpful for treating certain conditions, many health issues respond well to natural forms of treatment such as chiropractic care. This means fewer negative side effects from drugs and more permanent recovery.

You don't have to endure back pain or other health issues. Give our Asheville office a call today at (828) 676-0963. We'll do our best to help you get and stay free from back pain.

References

1. Goertz CM, Long CR, Hondras MA, Petri R, Delgado R, Lawrence DJ, Owens EF, Meeker WC. Adding chiropractic manipulative therapy to standard medical care for patients with acute low back pain: results of a pragmatic randomized comparative effectiveness study. Spine 2013;38(8):627-634.
2. Hertzman-Miller RP1, Morgenstern H, Hurwitz EL, Yu F, Adams AH, Harber P, Kominski GF. Comparing the satisfaction of low back pain patients randomized to receive medical or chiropractic care: results from the UCLA low-back pain study. American Journal of Public Health 2002;92(10):1628-1633.