Hollstrom & Associates Inc Offers Options to Opioids for Pain Relief

Opioids. Back Pain. Treatment Options. Chiropractic has a place in managing and relieving pain that shouldn’t be overlooked. Primary care physicians don’t feel much confidence treating musculoskeletal pain. (1) Family practitioners are the largest prescribers of opioids. (2) Meanwhile, who takes care of 40% of pain patients? Chiropractors! (1) Your Largo chiropractor at Hollstrom & Associates Inc sees many pain patients and eases plenty of Largo back pain often without opioids.

STATISTICS ON OPIOIDS FOR PAIN

These statistics are based on a large study of 478,981 newly diagnosed, “opiate-naïve” patients who begin utilizing opiates for pain relief. (2)

• 40.4% of pain patients accepted opioid prescriptions originally inside the first year of pain but only 4% met the requirement for long-term use.
• Family practice doctors are the most common first prescribers of opiates for pain whose risk of prescribing these early in the pain process is 24.4% while those patients then have a 2% risk of long-term, continued opiate use.  
• Patients who seek care from emergency medicine doctors (43.1%) or urgent care facility (40.8%) are most certainly to be prescribed opiates early in their pain cycle.
• Patients diagnosed first by a pain management doctor or physical medicine and rehab provider have a higher risk of long-term opioid use by 6.7% and 3.4%, respectively.

Hollstrom & Associates Inc invites pain patients to seek Largo chiropractic care first!

PHYSICIANS WHO TREAT PAIN

Primary care physicians (52%), pain physicians (2%), chiropractors (40%), acupuncturists (7%) treat chronic pain patients. Primary care physicians are the least probable physicians to feel confident managing musculoskeletal and neuropathic pain. (1) Chiropractors like yours at Hollstrom & Associates Inc confidently use non-drug management and/or co-management with other healthcare personnel for the pain relief and pain control for Largo back pain patients.

CHIROPRACTIC’S PLACE IN PAIN CARE

Hollstrom & Associates Inc speculates why chiropractors aren’t more immediately considered in the process for Largo pain relief, especially Largo back pain relief. Chiropractic services intergrate spinal manipulation (one of the highest recommended types of care for back pain by the American Pain Society and the American College of Physicians (3)), exercise, and nutrition. What prevents some medical doctors from considering nutrition? A recent article states the reason in its title: “Nutrition: Push For Doctors To Learn Nutrition: Many Graduate Without Training.” It also notes that patients believe their medical doctor knows about nutrition. (4) And that’s fine if healthcare professionals coordinated care sharing their expertise, recognizing that each has a role in the care of the pain patient and has the best welfare of the patient fundamentally. Chiropractors have expertise in non-surgical and non-drug care of pain, back pain, and spine pain.

COORDINATING CARE

Recognizing that a healthcare provider’s profession influences his/her treatment recommendations, guidelines for Largo back pain patient care are developed to try to use the expertise maximally. Interdisciplinary care challenges differences among professions and their recommendation standards so that a patient receives a consistent therapy message with current treatment guidelines. Activity messages do differ by profession though: nurses were more restrictive in their recommendations of activity; physicians were more aligned with guidelines; physiotherapists recommended much more activity but less work activity than physicians. (5) Hollstrom & Associates Inc collaborates with other local Largo healthcare providers for patient care, valuing their expertise and involvement in Largo back pain patients’ return to activities that they like to do.

CONTACT Hollstrom & Associates Inc

Schedule a Largo chiropractic appointment with Hollstrom & Associates Inc for interdisciplinary care of your pain. Your Largo chiropractor is ready and willing to work with fellow Largo healthcare providers and to share with you options on how to manage your back pain beyond and/or alongside opioid drug care.