LiveWell Chiropractic

Americans have realized that the present course of health care in our nation must change unless we want to financially cripple our country. Many people never considered the huge economic impact of the medical industrial complex until they personally felt the crunch of stacks of medical bills. More than half of all bankruptcies in the U.S. are a result of medical debt, according to a study by Harvard researchers.1 And most of those cases involve those with insurance!

There is no doubt that health care costs could be reduced significantly of unnecessary treatments were eliminated. That includes ineffective treatments for one of the top ten ailments in America, “back pain.” The negative repercussions of back pain are serious – lost work, disability, risk of further injury – but standard treatments do little to alleviate the problem and are extremely expensive.

Standard treatments are also very risky. Heavy drugs and major surgery often do more harm than good when they fail to alleviate the pain. In 1994 the U.S. Public Health Service's Agency for Health Care Policy & Research (AHCPR) conducted the most thorough investigation into acute low back pain in adults and concluded the following finding in its Patient Guide: "Surgery has been found to be helpful in only 1 in 100 cases of low back problems. In some people, surgery can even cause more problems.”

The reason for the multitude of mistreated backs is two-fold: First, most primary care providers have little training in how to manage musculoskeletal disorders, leading them to prescribe ineffective procedures. Second, the conventional treatments are very profitable, discouraging a movement to something more successful. But there is a better way.

Manual spinal adjustments have now been shown to be the most clinically effective, and cost-effective, method for addressing the epidemic of low back pain.2 It’s time to “back off” the unnecessary, ineffective, and expensive treatments for back pain. Chiropractic adjustments can heal the condition by realigning the spine and removing the cause of the pain. If you are experiencing chronic back pain, schedule an appointment with Dr. French to discuss a plan to get you back on your feet without drugs or knives.

References

1 Himmelstein DU, Thorne D, Warren E, Woolhandler S. Medical Bankruptcy in the United States, 2007: results of a national study. The American Journal of Health, August 2009;122(8):741-746.

2 Manga P, Angus D, Papadopoulos C, Swan W. "The Effectiveness and Cost-Effectiveness of Chiropractic Management of Low Back Pain." Funded by the Ontario Ministry of Health, August 1993.