If opioid drugs have zero evidence of benefit, and a hugely increased risk of major
adverse events, addiction, and death (as we discussed in last week’s blog), then
what can we do?
Well
this is where chiropractic comes in! It is well known from the scientific
literature that chiropractic is very effective at helping people with low back
pain, neck pain, and headaches. It works because chiropractic helps the brain
know more accurately what’s going on within the body, which then helps the
brain to be better able to switch off the feelings of pain.
We
know that chiropractic adjustments have a major effect on the pre-frontal
cortex, which is a part of the brain that is very involved in pain that becomes
chronic (meaning lasts for months or years). So research is currently
showing that chiropractic is, more often than not, going to be able to prevent
pain from becoming chronic.
On
top of that, research is absolutely showing that if you use a chiropractor you
are far less likely to use pain drugs of any type. Here’s a couple of studies
to back up this claim.
The
Sarnat study in 2007 looked at over 70,000 member months of health care and
found that by going to a chiropractor there was 60% fewer hospital
admissions; 59% less hospital days; 62% less outpatient surgeries; and an 85%
decrease in pharmaceutical costs!
The
Academy of Integrative Health and Medicine in 2016 examined 33,000 people with
low back pain. Of those 33,000 people, about one third of people saw a
chiropractor. Of those people, 38% had at least 1 opioid prescription. Of
the two thirds of people who didn’t see a chiropractor, 61% had at least 1
opioid prescription.
People
who received chiropractic care had 3.9 fills of their opioid prescriptions
compared to 8.3 fills in the non-chiropractic care group. The likelihood of
filling an opioid prescription was 57% lower for chiropractic patients. This study is still in
the preliminary phases and needs final analysis but that’s some amazing
numbers.
We
know that the feeling of pain is something that our brain has decided we need
to feel due to damage or potential damage. Pain can be helpful and informative
as it stops us from doing something that may cause more damage, and it seems to
help with wound healing too.
So,
it’s very dangerous and in fact a massive problem to artificially switch this
off by turning to drugs. Instead we need to get to the cause of the problem and
use non-drug techniques to deal with the pain while our body heals.
This
certainly includes more than just chiropractic, things such as cognitive
behavioral therapy and exercise therapy. The science shows that taking
these options are far more likely to help you than the drugs, and if you go
down the drug road your odds of the drugs causing you harm are seriously high.
Our
posture, and how we move also greatly affects the way we experience pain. If
you do suffer from chronic pain, walking daily and performing stretching and
simple exercises to help posture are being shown to greatly improve our brain’s
ability to handle pain. The worst thing you can do is sit around because you
feel so miserable and do nothing.
We
even know from research that imagining a movement affects your brain in almost
the same way as actually moving, so you can trick your brain into moving in
a way that normally hurts and essentially convince it that it no longer hurts. That’s
amazing!
Movement
(or visualizing movement) is far more effective when dealing with chronic pain,
as a fresh acute injury such as a newly herniated disc for example is so
inflamed that everything is going to hurt in that area for a little while until
you start to repair the mechanics. And this pain is serving us a purpose,
whereas the chronic pain is not!
Changing
your emotions and moods is also being shown to help. So try to get outside, be
around plants and flowers or people you enjoy, find things to laugh at, get
moving in water, and so on. All of these things will improve your emotions which
will improve your brain’s ability to deal with chronic pain.
Movement
of our spine is vitally important too. And that’s not just about utilizing chiropractic
to manage chronic pain (although it may be the most important piece) but also includes
things like yoga and other spinal balance exercises. Proper movement of the spine
allows our brain to know what’s going on within our body so this will always be
vital when it comes to dealing with pain - we must have as close to normal
spinal movements as possible.
Pain
is often associated with poor sensorimotor control, and chiropractic is all
about enhancing sensorimotor control, which is then likely to have a big impact
on the symptoms of the neck pain and back pain that you’re suffering from.
Staying
active and using our big muscles, along with what we eat are 2 other very
important pieces in dealing with chronic pain. What we eat greatly impacts our
pain either good or bad ways depending on what we eat.
So
the take home message is this: We know that pain is created in our brains,
and most of the time it is actually very useful to us. Sometimes however, it
can become chronic and becomes uninformative and damaging. This is when many
people turn to drugs, such as opioids, to manage this pain. However, millions
of people are becoming addicted to these opioid drugs.
Other
options exist without taking drugs and these include: Seeing someone who will assist
you to use your own mind and thoughts to help you deal with the pain; exercise;
yoga; chiropractic; changing what you eat; and the list goes on!
We
want you to be able to make informed choices about whether or not you will take
opioid drugs. This doesn’t mean you should never ever take them. But you must
know how they do and don’t work, along with the risks!
Comments
Post a Comment