Effective Back Pain Treatment

We see a number of people with back pain in our Kettering practice, and Dr. Poelking has been able to help many of them find relief through various chiropractic techniques. However, recovering from back pain doesn't necessarily mean having to make a choice between chiropractic care and medical treatment, as many individuals use both types of care with great success.

Study Confirms Chiropractic and Medical Care Work Well with One Another

In a study published by the medical journal Spine researchers¹ looked at a group of active-duty military personnel between the ages of 18 and 35 who reported both acute discomfort and restricted function due to back pain. Some of the test subjects engaged in treatment via standard medical therapy, while the rest received chiropractic care along with regular medical care, as the authors wanted to determine which patients fared better.

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

Therefore, combining these two forms of treatment can greatly benefit you--the patient--offering advantages when compared to medical care alone. However, while chiropractic and medical approaches can work together, chiropractic offers some distinct advantages over medical treatment.

Where Chiropractic Care Is Successful

Although it might seem as if each approach plays a 50/50 role, there is one significant benefit that chiropractic has over medical care and that is in patient satisfaction. In fact, one bit of research done at UCLA² that was published in the American Journal of Public Health reports that, on average, chiropractic patients are generally more satisfied with their recovery than those undergoing medical treatment.

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

Chiropractic Care Is a Natural Approach to Wellness

Certainly, the techniques associated with chiropractic are quite different than those available with medical treatment, 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 only relieving the symptoms, chiropractic means searching for the primary cause of your pain, which often means greater improvement as you are tackling the problem at its source.

In addition, while medication is sometimes helpful for treating certain conditions, many health issues respond well to natural forms of treatment like chiropractic. This means fewer negative side effects from prescriptions and more permanent results.

You don't have to endure back pain or other health problems. Give our Kettering clinic a call today at (937) 299-2900. We'll do our best to help you get and remain 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.