Many people head to their primary doctor first when they develop or have been suffering with lower back pain.
While this is a great idea to have your medical doctor try to help you, there are strong recommendations from the American College of Physicians (ACP), that non-drug therapies should be the first treatment.
Medications For Lower Back Pain Can Lead to Opioid Addiction
Recently, the damaging effects of opioids have come to light.
Even when addiction to and deaths from opioid medications had been on the rise and causing so much harm to people taking them, they had continued to be recommended.
Thankfully, we have seen a significant decline in the number of people being prescribed these medications.
So What Do you Do For Acute Short Term Back Pain?
Well, the ACP recommends treatment for acute back pain should be non-pharmacological.
Treat it with heat, massage, and Spinal Manipulation (also known as Chiropractic Adjustments). Yes, that’s right.
The same treatments we offer in our office is the same treatment the ACP is recommending for your back.
Of course it is best to have a thorough evaluation first to make sure you are getting the appropriate type of care for you.
Doc, my back pain has been going on for more than 3 months …What do I do?
The ACP recommends that care for your back pain should include more movement and exercise, multi-disciplinary rehabilitation, stress reduction, tai chi, yoga, and again Spinal Manipulation or Chiropractic Adjustments.
Great news too – as chiropractors ourselves, we use rehab and chiropractic care, provide access to massage therapists and also offer yoga on the weekends as well.
All of these should be tried before medication usage.
So In A Nutshell…
So, in a nutshell, see a health care provider who can help get your back moving better (we recommend a spinal expert – in other words, a chiropractor), start exercising, and decrease your stress.
Use medication only as a last resort for the pain.
Our goal is to partner with you, get you feeling better and get you back to doing what you want.
