An ounce of prevention!

Despite that chiropractic is so much more to good health and overall well-being the truth is most people think of chiropractic as headache and lower back treatment. This has become so because both are a huge problem and cost tremendous amounts of money out of people’s pockets every year. Today I want to focus on lower back pain. This is the leading cause of disability worldwide and the number one reason people miss work and the second most common reason for a visit to a medical doctor, second only to the common cold. This is directly relevant as I see everyday people that waited too long to get this problem handled and now has permanent aspects that can never be 100% healthy again. Thankfully most of these can still be helped and managed, however with insurance coverage getting higher and higher with deductibles and copays, and this is expected to get even worse next year.This is more money from each of you to cover this problem. Lower back pain costs Americans over $150 Billion annually in direct costs out of pocket and time missed from work (indirect costs). This is huge because quite often the problem is preventable if we listen to our bodies (and our chiropractors). Surgery is stated to be affected about one third of the time and a lot of research suggests less. Steroid injections cause deterioration of joints and therefore not something to take lightly. Physical and massage therapy can both be affective when the issue is a muscle issue, however 90-95% of low back pain is mechanical or segmental dysfunction based according to MEDICAL research. What does that mean? In short it is a chiropractic issue and this is why it has been so affective through the years and how there is a reputation for helping with these issues. I do not deny my bias, however, numbers don’t lie and for the most part when chiropractic hasn’t helped especially with lower back pain the individual waited too long in hoping it would go away. That standpoint is not all that different than hoping the cancer, or cholesterol issue, or diabetes will go away if not specifically doing something and if you wait too long with your health in general it can lead to devastating consequences. This is the main reason chiropractors want people to just keep coming back, it really is for your own best interest in that if there is already an underlying issue it unfortunately and often takes a lot of time to stabilize just like with other health issues. If the underlying issue isn’t that bad then we want to keep it that way. Take it from someone that has had severe lower back pain due to mostly a car accident you never want to experience it because it makes life miserable and can make even getting dressed and going to the bathroom painful. An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure, and a lifetime of chiropractic is better than a single surgery.

Yours in health,

DR. RJ