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Fort Wayne Chiropractic Care Instead of an Emergency Room Visit and Pain Meds for Back Pain

Emergency room physicians are trying to figure out what is best to do for back pain patients who visit the ER for help. It’s a quandry for them, especially since nearly 3 million such patients with undifferentiated musculoskeletal low back pain visit the emergency room for help annually! (1) Unless there is cauda equina syndrome demanding surgery or an infection, pain is the issue. How best can a Fort Wayne ER doc help? How can an ER doctor provide higher value care? (2) Imaging and medication. What can the Fort Wayne chiropractic back pain specialist provide? Spinal manipulation and nutrients. Chiropractic has published about successfully managing back pain.

EMERGENCY ROOM: IMAGING

The ER performs a lot of imaging. One in 3 patients who go to the emergency room for back pain (as opposed to 1 in 4 who go to a primary care physician) gets imaging ordered: simple imaging 26%, complex imaging 8.2%. (3) Today’s imaging recommendations do not support this as they recommend holding off on imaging for 4-6 weeks of conservative care before imaging. (4) Maybe patients are telling ER doctors that they have been under such care already? Probably not since only 34% of patients who go to an ER tell the emergency department physician that they get healthcare options like chiropractors, massage therapy, acupuncture and the like. (5) What about the pain?

EMERGENCY ROOM: MEDICATIONS

Pain relief, it seems, is what they can offer. Researchers have studied a variety of pain medication combinations ER doctors have prescribed to determine what works best. What have they discovered? Stronger pain medication options do not offer much of a difference. Adding baclofen, metaxalone, or tizanidine to ibuprofen doesn’t appear to improve function or pain any more than placebo plus ibuprofen by 1 week after an ED visit for acute low back pain. (6,7) Mixing ibuprofen and acetaminophen didn’t reduce pain scores or the need for other analgesic pain meds compared with either ibuprofen or acetaminophen alone in emergency room patients with acute musculoskeletal injuries. (8) As a matter of fact, 48% of back pain patients who go to an ER for their back pain still had functional impairment 3 months later as well as 42% said they had moderate or severe pain. 46% report using some type of analgesic pain reliever in the day prior. There are short and long-term issues for ER patients with low back pain. (1) This may all be frustrating for emergency department physicians and their patients but not always for chiropractors and their chiropractic back pain patients. The Fort Wayne chiropractic back pain specialist at Cox Chiropractic Medicine Inc is armed with the best of chiropractic care for Fort Wayne back pain relief.

CHIROPRACTIC: MANIPULATION AND NUTRIENTS

Your Fort Wayne chiropractor gets it. Familiarity with chiropractic spinal manipulation via The Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management with the addition of nutrition like chondroitin sulfate, glucosamine sulfate and curcurmin and turmeric supports your Fort Wayne chiropractor’s confidence that back pain relief and management for many otherwise frustrated Fort Wayne back pain patients is possible.

Listen to this PODCAST with Dr. Michael Schneider on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson who describes the role of the primary spine physician who would be the physician to seek out for back pain issues.

CONTACT Cox Chiropractic Medicine Inc

Schedule a Fort Wayne chiropractic visit with Cox Chiropractic Medicine Inc especially if an ER visit has not resulted in the pain relief you wanted. Fort Wayne chiropractic care has figured out a well-documented and researched way to manage back pain.

	Cox Chiropractic Medicine Inc welcomes Fort Wayne back pain patients to the clinic instead of the emergency room for pain meds whenever possible. 
 
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"This information and website content is not intended to diagnose, guarantee results, or recommend specific treatment or activity. It is designed to educate and inform only. Please consult your physician for a thorough examination leading to a diagnosis and well-planned treatment strategy. See more details on the DISCLAIMER page. Content is reviewed by Dr. James M. Cox I."