Bottom Line:
Pain is your body's way of signalling to you that something needs your attention. In other words, when a problem occurs in your body due to ergonomic stress, poor spinal movement, or degenerative changes, it uses pain to get you to take action and correct the problem. Think of PAIN as your body saying: “Pay Attention Inside Now!”
Believe it or not, pain is usually the last thing to show up and the first thing to leave after an injury. Just because your pain goes away, doesn’t mean the root cause that lead to that pain has been corrected. Many pain relief methods simply mask symptoms. Chiropractic adjustments work to provide pain relief while also correcting the underlying problem.
Why it Matters:
You may know someone who has visited a health professional in the past with neck or back pain. Perhaps, an injection was given. Perhaps, as is often the case, their pain returned in a matter of days or weeks. Why? Because the medication had worn off and ultimately the real cause of the pain was not corrected.
Research has proven that manual therapy can effectively treat the underlying mechanical and neural causes of neck and back pain. In fact, studies have shown that people seeking relief from their neck and back pain who received Chiropractic care often reported a 60% decrease in pain, which was nearly 10% MORE relief than those patients who opted for an injection instead.
▪ Pain is your body’s signal that something is wrong, especially when it comes to neck or back pain.
▪ Injections and medications often provide short-term relief from neck or back pain without correcting the cause.
▪ spinal and joint adjustments have been shown to successfully treat the mechanical & neural causes of neck or back pain.
Next Steps:
If someone you know has or is considering receiving an epidural injection to treat their neck or back pain, share this research with them. Let them know that integrating ongoing Chiropractic adjustments and manual therapy into their care plan will result in a more significant outcome than that injection alone. If that someone is you, you’re in the right place! Give us a call or stop in and see us so we can get you on the path to relief from pain today!
Science Source:
Spinal Manipulation Post-epidural Injection for Lumbar and Cervical Radiculopathy: A Retrospective Case Series. Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics. September 2004
Symptomatic MRI-Confirmed Lumbar Disk Herniation Patients: A Comparative Effectiveness Prospective Observational Study of 2 Age- and Sex-Matched Cohorts Treated with Either High-Velocity, Low Amplitude Spinal Manipulative Therapy or Imaging-Guided Lumbar Nerve Root Injections. Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics. May 2013
A Retrospective Analysis of Vertebral Body Fractures Following Epidural Steroid Injections. The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery. June 2013