FYI....

by Byron, Thursday, January 03, 2013, 21:51 (4288 days ago) @ Dave B

Over the past 20 years I have seen somewhere north of 8000 back pain patients in my clinic and feel that I can present a fairly rational and balanced opinion on this issue.

Our approach to care is chiropractic first, drugs second and surgery last. This has proven to be about the mose effective, economical and safest treatment plan available. It works.

A couple of points up front. Spinal surgery is not a "simple procedure". It is dangerous. Stats will show that about 1/3 get better, 1/3 show no improvement and 1/3 get worse. If you talk to 10 guy who had back surgery 5 years ago about half will tell you that it was a mistake. Google the AMAs position on the epidemic of unneccessary back surgery and longterm outcomes. Note there is an ICD diagnosis code of"failed back syndrome" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Failed_back_syndrome

Surgery is an option but it must be your last option. Always rememeber and never forget. Once that blade touches your skin all the bets are off. If you get up in the morning and say "I can live with this" you should put surgery off until you have tried every alternitive. When you loose bowel or bladder control or do not care if they operate on you with a KBar and soldering iron and it will quit hurting...then you're there.

Excercise and spinal strength is critical in maintain spinal health. Check with a top PT for insight on strengthing the core.

Unless you have tried chiropractic you have not tried everything and you should. Depending on the extent of the disc bulge, chiropractic may be in and of itself the answer to your problem. From our clinical experience (some 300,000 patient encounters over 20 years), you will best be served with a technique call "Activator" or instrument adjusting. This does not involve any of the twisting or "popping' some identify with chiropractic. It does not stress the facet joints of the spine or the annulus of the disc. It is very very safe and very very effective. We do not recommend the "side posture" manual lumbar manipulation for treatment of disc heriation. Please do not allow anyone, DC,MD, DO or PT to "pop" your low back at this point.

If that does not get you where you want to be the next step in our office is "non-surgical disc decompression". It is a process similar to lumbar traction but has been demonstrated to be much more effective. We do it a bunch and see outcomes where 3 out of 4 disc heriations are withdrawn into the spine and allowed to heal...1 out of 4 show damage so profound that surgery is inevitable.

Regarding "inversion therapy". Here's the deal. It is a form of axial traction using body weight the "stetch' the spine. Mechanically, this form of axial traction pulls the natural curves from the spine and that in and of itself can cause problems. More important, your body has evolved to upright posture over the past 10 million years and the vascularity in your head is designed so. If you get upside down your head is subjected to not only your intrensic blood pressure but 6 feet of static head pressure...blood pressure then is more than double...as long as there are no vascular weakness there is not problem. However, retinal bleeds in the tiny blood vessel in the back of the eye are fairly common...weakness in the brain will be catastrophic. No bueno.

Generally speaking, conservative care will resolve sciatic and mechanical low back pain within a couple of months. Many times within a couple of days.

Epiduaral injections are the next step in this gradiant. AMA states they provide "some benefit to 50%" of patients" but will be worth a try.

Pain killers, anti-inflamitories and muscle relaxents will prove to be ineffective ofer the longterm....the label on the bottle says "temporary use only".

Anyway, as you probably know TriCare does not cover chiropractic unless you are active duty and on a post, camp or base where chiropractic physicians are on duty.

It will cost you somewhere around a grand for at chiropractic treatment plan that has a very high rate of success. Before you consider surgery, do yourself a favor and do it.

Please contact me at: yrusik@ yahoo.com if you have any other questions.

Privileged to serve

Byron