Vancouver Disc Centers Offers Options to Opioids for Pain Relief
Opioids. Back Pain. Treatment Options. Chiropractic has a place in managing and easing pain that shouldn’t be ignored. Primary care physicians don’t feel very confident treating musculoskeletal pain. (1) Family practitioners are the leading prescribers of opioids. (2) Meanwhile, who takes care of 40% of pain patients? Chiropractors! (1) Your Vancouver chiropractor at Vancouver Disc Centers treats many pain patients and eases a lot of Vancouver back pain often with no opioids.
STATISTICS ON OPIOIDS FOR PAIN
The following stats are based on a large study of 478,981 recently diagnosed, “opiate-naïve” patients who begin utilizing opiates for pain relief. (2)
- 40.4% of pain patients obtained opioid prescriptions originally within a year of pain while 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 look for 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 an increased risk of long-term opioid use by 6.7% and 3.4%, respectively.
Vancouver Disc Centers welcomes pain patients to seek Vancouver chiropractic care sooner than later!
PHYSICIANS WHO TREAT PAIN
Primary care physicians (52%), pain physicians (2%), chiropractors (40%), acupuncturists (7%) treat chronic pain patients. Primary care physicians are the least likely physicians to feel confident treating musculoskeletal and neuropathic pain. (1) Chiropractors like yours at Vancouver Disc Centers confidently use non-drug management and/or co-management with other healthcare personnel for the pain relief and pain control for Vancouver back pain patients.
CHIROPRACTIC’S PLACE IN PAIN CARE
Vancouver Disc Centers wonders why chiropractors are not more readily considered in the process for Vancouver pain relief, particularly Vancouver back pain relief. Chiropractic services incorporate spinal manipulation (one of the top 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 think their medical doctor understands nutrition. (4) And that’s ok if healthcare professionals collaborated sharing their expertise, acknowledging that each has a role in the care of the pain patient and has the best welfare of the patient at heart. Chiropractors are proficient in non-surgical and non-drug care of pain, back pain, and spine pain.
COORDINATING CARE
Knowing that a healthcare provider’s profession effects his/her treatment recommendations, guidelines for Vancouver back pain patient care are developed 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) Vancouver Disc Centers collaborates with other local Vancouver healthcare providers for patient care, valuing their expertise and involvement in Vancouver back pain patients’ return to activities of daily living that make each day better.
CONTACT Vancouver Disc Centers
Schedule a Vancouver chiropractic appointment with Vancouver Disc Centers for interdisciplinary care of your pain. Your Vancouver chiropractor is ready and willing to work with fellow Vancouver healthcare providers and to share with you options on how to manage your back pain beyond and/or alongside opioid drug care.
