Effective Back Pain Treatment

We see quite a few patients with back pain in our Anchorage office, and Dr. Mulholland has been able to help a lot of them get relief with chiropractic. At the same time, dealing with back pain doesn't necessarily mean having to make a choice between chiropractic care and medical care, as many people use both types of care with great outcomes.

Study Confirms Chiropractic and Medical Treatment Work Well with Each Other

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 claimed both acute discomfort and restricted function due to back symptoms. Some of the test subjects engaged in treatment via standard medical care, while the remainder received chiropractic care along with standard medical care, as the authors wanted to see which group fared better.

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

Therefore, integrating these two forms of care can greatly benefit you--the patient--offering advantages when compared to medical care alone. However, while chiropractic and medicine can work together, chiropractic offers some unique advantages over medical therapy.

Where Chiropractic Care Wins

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

According to the researchers, the main factors that patients liked over medical care were "self-care advice and explanation of treatment." This isn't unexpected, as chiropractors commonly 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 care.

Chiropractic Offers a Holistic Approach

Without a doubt, the methods associated with chiropractic are very different than those provided with medical care, but a large amount of the distinction is the fact that chiropractic is a holistic approach to health and well-being. Instead of focusing on simply relieving the symptoms, chiropractic means finding the root cause of your pain, which often translates to greater improvement as you are addressing the problem at its source.

In addition, while medication is sometimes helpful for managing certain conditions, many health issues respond well to a natural approach like chiropractic. This means fewer negative responses to medications and longer-lasting recovery.

You don't have to suffer from back pain or other health issues. Give our Anchorage clinic a call today at (907) 770-5700. 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.