Shelton Sports and Spine | Shelton, CT Chiropractor | Dr. Jason Queiros | Sports Chiropractic
  • Home
  • About
    • Meet the Team
    • Testimonials & Reviews
    • Office Tour
    • Forms
  • Services
    • Services and techniques
    • What we Treat
    • Chiropractic in the Media
  • Contact
    • Location & Hours
  • Stretching & Exercise
  • Q & A with Doctors Q & C

Q & A with Dr. Q

Answers to commonly asked questions.

Can Chiropractic be Effective for Chronic Pain Management?

8/29/2019

24 Comments

 
Picture
Yes!

Chiropractic has been proven to help manage both acute and chronic pain.

Pain management, in general, is a big issue in healthcare. Let’s look at some facts:

Low back pain is the single leading cause of disability. According to the US bone and Joint initiative study, b
ack pain was cause for over 264 million days off of work. That is all without considering any other type of chronic pain condition. Pain affects more Americans than diabetes, heart disease and cancer combined. 

When looking for solutions to chronic pain, the first thing we tend to reach for is over-the-counter aids such as Aspirin, Advil, or Ibuprofen. Then if these conditions worsen and we go to the doctor we are typically directed to stronger prescription medications, which, can be concerning to many patient situations.

Many people are looking for ways to treat their chronic pain without resorting to drugs of the traditional medication protocol. With alternative care we can lessen our dependency on over the counter drugs and even opioids. 


Back pain is also one of the most common conditions that opioids are prescribed for with over half of opioid users reporting back pain among their symptoms. Why is this connection between back pain and opioids so concerning?

While prescription opioids are certainly helpful to many patients in complex severe conditions, however, we need to also be looking at the big picture of the opioid crisis: In 2016, illicit and prescription opioids were responsible for more than 42,000 fatal overdoses across the country. According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, those numbers have quintupled since 1999, which means the problem is just getting worse.

The good news is that, alternative medicines are already making great improvements to these dire statistics.


Let's take a look at some strategies the VA has been using in order reduce opioid addiction among veterans. After launching one initiative, they were able to reduce overall opioid prescriptions by 41% over the past five years. The project was focused on non-drug treatment for chronic pain, such as acupuncture, spinal manipulation therapy, chiropractic care, and yoga. 
​

It is also good news to know that patients who received services from a chiropractor were less likely to fill a prescription for opioid medication, and, there was a 51 percent lower likelihood of an adverse drug incident compared to non recipients of chiropractic care.


A visit to the chiropractor may also be more cost effective for sufferers of chronic pain. In one study, "those who initiated treatment for low back pain with chiropractic rather than a regular MD had 40% in reduced healthcare cost!" In general “Healthcare plans that incorporate chiropractic typically realize a 2:1 return for every dollar spent.” 

There are numerous research studies, reports, and surveys proving how effective chiropractic can be for pain:

"In a Randomized controlled trial, 183 patients with neck pain were randomly allocated to manual therapy (spinal mobilization), physiotherapy (mainly exercise) or general practitioner care (counseling, education and drugs) in a 52-week study. The clinical outcomes measures showed that manual therapy resulted in faster recovery than physiotherapy and general practitioner care. Moreover, total costs of the manual therapy-treated patients were about one-third of the costs of physiotherapy or general practitioner care."
          Korthals-de Bos et al (2003), British Medical Journal
​

“Patients with chronic low-back pain treated by chiropractors showed greater improvement and satisfaction at one month than patients treated by family physicians. Satisfaction scores were higher for chiropractic patients. A higher proportion of chiropractic patients (56 percent vs. 13 percent) reported that their low-back pain was better or much better, whereas nearly one-third of medical patients reported their low-back pain was worse or much worse.” 
          Nyiendo et al (2000), Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutic


The evidence and anecdotes are solid. If you are suffering form chronic or acute pain, chiropractic care may well worth a try!

Send us your questions! Yours might be answered next week. [email protected]

Sources and Further Reading:
NIH Fact Sheet -- Pain Management
​The Center for Disease Control and Prevention -- Drug Overdose Deaths 
​VHA Pain Management -- Opioid Saftey Initiative
​Boss Magazine -- Corrective Care for the Opioid Epidemic 
​
American Chiropractic Association -- What Research Shows About Chiropractic

24 Comments

Q: How Do I Get a Summer Six-Pack?

8/25/2019

1 Comment

 
Picture

A: This question is a preemptive strike. When April and May come around, people always ask for tips, tricks, and exercises to help get a nice summer 6 pack to take to the beach.

My answer is usually… Start in February! 

The exercises we typically assign to build core muscles such as pelvic tilts, glute bridges, planks, and side-planks are extremely effective. Don’t forget to constantly engage your core doing any exercise, standing, sitting, walking, or running to build your core and help your posture. 

Let’s take it up a notch with our PTA, Stuart, who suggests we strengthen our core with hanging exercises. Get off the floor and find somewhere to hang out until summer!

Level 1: Just hang! To do an ‘active hang’ get a good grip on the bar. Engage your shoulders and ‘shrug’ to lift your torso. Straighten your legs and hold them together in a pike. You can engage your legs more pushing your toes into a ‘pointe’ or pulling them up into a ‘flex’ position. Tighten your core and make sure your spine is straight and your hips are aligned with your torso the way you would with a plank. When you can hold this position for 30-60 seconds, move on to the next progression. 

In addition to working your core muscles, these hangs also help to decompress the spine, stretch the chest, shoulders, and arms, plus strengthen your hands and grip. 

Level 2: Knees to chest. Start in your active hang position, then, keeping your legs and ankles together slowly bend your knees and draw them up towards your chest. Go as high as you can while maintaining your core. Feel free to start with partial-lift, until you work up to getting your knees higher. Want to make it harder? Lift yourself into a pull up or chin up position while bringing your knees up!

Level 3: Straight leg raises. Remember, going slowly and holding your core properly will pay off way more than trying to force the ‘L’ and sacrifice your form. If you can only lift your feet up a few inches at a time, that is still a great start and a great core exercise. Eventually, as you build your strength and flexibility, you will be able to hit that perfect ‘L’ shape. Want to change it up? Try alternating leg lifts, remember to keep both legs pipe-straight, this will work flexibility and strength in each leg individually, and engage your obliques as you work to keep balance. 

Because you are hanging and not on the ground you are working all your core muscles together, not just one side at a time. It’s a nice change of pace to traditional sit ups and crunches.

Check out Stuart in the video below for a demonstration of each progression.

I want to stress that the right exercises are only half (that's being generous) of the 6 pack  pie, the other aspect is DIET.  Good abdominal muscles and core strength are made in the gym, but a great 6 pack is made in the kitchen. 

Stay tuned for more exercise articles. Do you have a question about building core strength? Email your question to [email protected], it might be featured in our next Q & A!


1 Comment

    Author

    The Shelton Sports & Spine Blog is for answering your questions! Stay tuned to learn about our practice, health, food, treatments, and more!

    Archives

    February 2025
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019

    Categories

    All
    Neck Pain

    RSS Feed

View this profile on Instagram

Shelton Sports & Spine (@sheltonsportsandspine) • Instagram photos and videos

4 Armstrong Road
Suite T120
​Shelton, CT 06484
(203) 842-8631
Check out Shelton Sports & Spine on Yelp
  • Home
  • About
    • Meet the Team
    • Testimonials & Reviews
    • Office Tour
    • Forms
  • Services
    • Services and techniques
    • What we Treat
    • Chiropractic in the Media
  • Contact
    • Location & Hours
  • Stretching & Exercise
  • Q & A with Doctors Q & C