For the past few decades, the media has given Chiropractors the back seat as an approach to managing chronic back pain. But stop the press! The bias surrounding chiropractic has started to diminish! A recent article from Joshua Bright of The New York Times has stated that spinal manipulation is seen as effective as traditional approaches to help lower back pain!
4 in 5 people experience significant low back pain at some point. But many physicians, for years, have never considered referring to a Chiropractor for the management of symptoms.
Spinal manipulation is considered a very safe, if not safer, medical therapy to the management of chronic back pain as opposed to the use of drugs or surgery. Need we say more?
We are very passionate about Chiropractic, so yes, we will say more…
Chiropractors aim to relieve pain and restore spinal joint movements with gentle specific manipulations called “adjustments”. On-going treatment may include exercise and lifestyle advice, which is individually tailored to each case. Think of it as re-training the brain to get your body moving and working as effectively as possible. We often forget how good we are meant to feel…for years!
The bias has been going on for decades. 35 years ago, research conducted on the benefits of chiropractic was not completed to high quality. Doctors were under the impression that spinal manipulation was unsafe and not considered a viable approach to relieving back pain, only that there may be some short-term benefits.
But since then, data have been accumulated, as more higher-quality studies have been performed. The evidence from 15 randomised controlled trials showed that spinal manipulation caused an improvement in pain and improvements in function.
Every scientific review on manipulation for back pain has been positive to some degree. Not only that, doctors have discussed that they were wrong about potential harms and costs, with spinal manipulation being extremely safe. Additionally, the total cost of the holistic therapy approach to back pain is cheaper due to less time off, less medication needed, and less costly investigations. These days, for back pain, a referral to your friendly local Chiropractor might be just what the doctor ordered!
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