Effective Back Pain Treatment

We see a number of people with back pain in our Napa office, and Dr. Bettencourt has been able to help a lot of them find relief with chiropractic. At the same time, dealing with back pain doesn't necessarily mean having to decide between chiropractic care and medical treatment, as many individuals use both types of care with great results.

Research Confirms Chiropractic and Medical Treatment Work Well with One Another

In a report published by the academic journal Spine researchers¹ looked at a group of active-duty military personnel between the ages of 18 and 35 who reported both acute pain and limited function due to back symptoms. Some of the patients received treatment via standard medical therapy, while the rest received chiropractic adjustments together with standard medical care, as the authors wanted to determine which group fared better.

The authors discovered that the patients who got standard medical care in combination with chiropractic scored "significantly better" than the group that received medical care alone; 73% reported positive benefits in comparison to just 17 percent of the medical treatment only group who indicated the same amount of improvement. This was true regarding both pain and level of function at the two- and four-week marks.

Thus, integrating these two forms of care can greatly benefit you--the patient--offering advantages when compared to medical care alone. However, while chiropractic care and medical approaches can work together, chiropractic offers some distinct strengths over medical treatment.

Where Chiropractic Care Wins

Although it might seem as if each approach plays a 50/50 role, there is one major advantage that chiropractic care has over medical care and that is in patient satisfaction. In fact, a piece of research conducted at UCLA² that was printed in the American Journal of Public Health found that, on average, chiropractic patients are generally more satisfied with their recovery than patients undergoing medical treatment.

According to the researchers, the main factors that patients favored over medical care were "self-care advice and explanation of treatment." This isn't unexpected, as chiropractors typically spend much more time consulting with their patients as to how they can better their health on their own, as well as discussing more thoroughly what to expect from chiropractic care.

Chiropractic Is a Natural Approach to Wellness

Certainly, the methods associated with chiropractic are quite different than those available with medical therapy, but a large amount of the distinction is the fact that chiropractic is a natural approach to health and wellness. In contrast to focusing on simply relieving the symptoms, chiropractic care involves finding the root cause of your pain, which often means greater improvement as you are addressing the problem at its source.

In addition, while medication is sometimes helpful for treating certain conditions, many health issues respond well to a natural approach like chiropractic. This means fewer negative side effects from medications and lasting results.

You don't have to struggle with back pain or other health problems. Give our Napa clinic a call today at (707) 257-3600. We'll do our best to help you get and continue to be free from back pain.

References

1. Goertz CM, Long CR, Hondras MA, Petri R, Delgado R, Lawrence DJ, Owens EF, Meeker WC. Adding chiropractic manipulative therapy to standard medical care for patients with acute low back pain: results of a pragmatic randomized comparative effectiveness study. Spine 2013;38(8):627-634.
2. Hertzman-Miller RP1, Morgenstern H, Hurwitz EL, Yu F, Adams AH, Harber P, Kominski GF. Comparing the satisfaction of low back pain patients randomized to receive medical or chiropractic care: results from the UCLA low-back pain study. American Journal of Public Health 2002;92(10):1628-1633.