CHIROPRACTIC: FOR TREATING CHRONIC LOWER BACK PAIN, LOOK TO CHIROPRACTIC Although usually not life threatening, back pain, particularly chronic lower back pain (LBP), is a significant cause of functional disability, and evidence suggests that up to 90% of the costs are attributable to only 5-10% of LBP patients. From a standard western medical point of view, the diffuse nature of back pain complicates definitive diagnosis and treatment strategies, resulting in wide variance in management between and within health professions. This variation is due in part to the fact that the medical profession is only slowly beginning to adopt the view that any type of back pain is actually a functional problem and not some type of pathology. Medical physicians are primarily trained to diagnose and treat pathologies with drugs and surgery and it is difficult for them to relate to functional problems such as biomechanical sources and biochemical sources of chronic back pain of any type. It is estimated that less than 1% of back problems have a pathologic basis. A recent study that was conducted at the Department of Family Medicine at Oregon Health Sciences University compared outcomes between chiropractic and family practice type medical care for chronic LBP patients. Results showed that the patients treated by the chiropractic model had better overall improvement and satisfaction.

Chiropractic patients showed improvement across all outcomes: pain severity (31% reduction) functional disability ( 29% improvement) sensory pain quality ( 36% improvement) affective pain quality 57% improvement)	By comparison, medical patients showed only minimal improvements: pain severity (6% reduction) functional disability (1% improvement) while showing deterioration in: sensory (29% deterioration) affective dimensions of pain quality (26% deterioration)

Satisfaction scores were also significantly higher with chiropractic care compared to medical care. This study was limited in its application of treating methods and did not take into account such things as the nutritional, cardio conditioning and muscular weakness or imbalance status of each patient, thus the treatments were not as individualized as they could have been. In our experience, adding the anti-inflammatory nutritional protocols along with adequate/appropriate cardio and prescriptive weight training yields the most superior results. This is also what is seen in other literature. One of the greatest benefits of using a broad-based approach is that not only does it result in the greatest increased in functionality with decreased pain, it significantly improves your health and quality of life overall (wellness).

PRACTICE NEWS Our next in office lecture will be on Tuesday, November 7th at 7:00 PM. This talk will be covering what items you should have in your natural pharmacy and why. This talk is entitled “YOUR NATURAL MEDICINE CHEST ESSENTIALS” and it will cover things from strains and sprains to colds or digestive upset and will have an extensive question and answer time with only a few slides and will cover my 23 years of natural health experience. Please give us a call to let us know how many to expect and feel free to bring a guest or two. We will have some refreshments to fight off any fatigue so be there! Best wishes to you all and thank you for the privilege of serving your natural health care needs. It is an honor for all of us to be of service to you and our community.

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