Yorkville Chiropractic and Wellness Centre 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 very confident treating musculoskeletal pain. (1) Family practitioners are the leading prescribers of opioids. (2) Meanwhile, who treats 40% of pain patients? Chiropractors! (1) Your Toronto chiropractor at Yorkville Chiropractic and Wellness Centre takes care of many pain patients and eases plenty of Toronto back pain often exclusive of opioids.

STATISTICS ON OPIOIDS FOR PAIN

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

• 40.4% of pain patients received opioid prescriptions initially within a year of pain but only 4% met the requirement for long-term use.
• Family practice doctors are the most usual 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 an increased risk of long-term opioid use by 6.7% and 3.4%, respectively.

Yorkville Chiropractic and Wellness Centre invites pain patients to seek Toronto chiropractic care first!

PHYSICIANS WHO TREAT PAIN

Primary care physicians (52%), pain physicians (2%), chiropractors (40%), acupuncturists (7%) take care of chronic pain patients. Primary care physicians are the least likely physicians to feel confident managing musculoskeletal and neuropathic pain. (1) Chiropractors like yours at Yorkville Chiropractic and Wellness Centre confidently use non-drug management and/or co-management with other healthcare personnel for the pain relief and pain control for Toronto back pain patients.

CHIROPRACTIC’S PLACE IN PAIN CARE

Yorkville Chiropractic and Wellness Centre speculates why chiropractors are not more immediately considered in the process for Toronto pain relief, particularly Toronto back pain relief. Chiropractic services incorporate 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 shares that patients believe their medical doctor understands nutrition. (4) And that’s ok if healthcare professionals collaborated 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 effects his/her treatment recommendations, guidelines for Toronto back pain patient care are established to try to utilize the expertise maximally. Interdisciplinary care challenges differences among professions and their recommendation standards so that a patient gets a consistent therapy message with current treatment guidelines. Activity messages do vary by profession though: nurses were more restrictive in their recommendations of activity; physicians were more consistent with guidelines; physiotherapists recommended much more activity but less work activity than physicians. (5) Yorkville Chiropractic and Wellness Centre works with other local Toronto healthcare providers for patient care, appreciating their expertise and contribution to Toronto back pain patients’ return to activities that they like to do.

CONTACT Yorkville Chiropractic and Wellness Centre

Schedule a Toronto chiropractic appointment with Yorkville Chiropractic and Wellness Centre for interdisciplinary care of your pain. Your Toronto chiropractor is willing and able to work with fellow Toronto healthcare providers and to offer you options on how to manage your back pain beyond and/or alongside opioid drug care.