Executive Chiropractic of Iowa Treats the Patient Not the MRI
Why do patients have back surgery? Pain. What conditions do they suffer with most that leads them to back surgery? Spinal stenosis. Spondylolisthesis. What symptoms do they want gone? Butt pain. Leg pain. Back pain. Executive Chiropractic of Iowa is available as your first stop to avoid back surgery or, for some, the last stop. For many back-related-pain patients, West Des Moines chiropractic care does the trick and helps them avoid back surgery.
BACK PAIN SYMPTOMS
Back pain patients describe all sorts of painful and irritating symptoms: leg pain, numb toe(s), painful thighs, gluteal pain. (The saying that something is a “pain in the butt” is a literal description of some back pain patients’ pain! That pain is a more radicular source than degenerative change of facet joints. (1)) And lumbar spinal stenosis is the most common cause for back surgery in the US for adults. A research study of stenosis patients who have endured at least 3 years of pain showed that manual therapy and individualized exercise excelled in helping the most patients get more than 30% improvement in symptoms and 20% in function. (2) Our use of the Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management seeks at least 50% relief in 30 days with lots of patients realizing 60%, 70%, 80% and 90% quicker than that! Executive Chiropractic of Iowa recognizes that there are West Des Moines back pain sufferers who would celebrate with non-surgical relief like that!
BACK SURGERY: NECESSITY, COST AND IMAGING
Just how many back-pain patients with spinal stenosis or spondylolisthesis require surgery? 0.8%. This is reported in a study of 497,822 patients! The surgeon authors of this paper recommended doing decompression surgery without or with fusion sooner to reduce the cost of non-operative treatment. (3) Oh my! The cost of a fusion in 2006 was $40,000 (4) and $80,000 to $100,000 in 2013, making back pain the foremost cause of disability in the world ahead of 290 other conditions. (5) [Chiropractic is reported to be just 2.9% of the expense of back pain management. (6)] Over-imaging has added expense to the treatment of back pain: 1 in 4 (25%) of patients who go to a primary care doctors and 1 in 3 (33%) who go to the emergency room received imaging. (7) And what does imaging add to patient care and clinical outcome? Interesting question. There is no correlation between MRI findings for stenosis and the severity of pain, quality of life, depression or anxiety. (8, 9) What does boost patient care and clinical outcome? Collaboration between physicians – surgical and non-surgical spine experts – helps chronic back pain patients recover in terms of pain as well as socially and mentally. (10) Executive Chiropractic of Iowa welcomes such collaboration with you and your healthcare team! We want you to feel better!
CONTACT Executive Chiropractic of Iowa
Listen to this PODCAST by Dr. Kurt Olding on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson. Dr. Olding shares lumbar spinal stenosis care with Cox® Technic that allowed a woman to continue living life her way!
Schedule a non-surgical West Des Moines chiropractic care appointment with Executive Chiropractic of Iowa today. Physical, mental and emotional pain relief may be eased and back surgery dodged with gentle, safe chiropractic care at Executive Chiropractic of Iowa where patient care is based on the patient not the MRI!
