When a person has been suffering with severe back pain they will usually end up at their primary care medical doctor first. The course of treatment they will undergo usually starts with medications like pain killers and anti-inflammatory meds. They may be referred out for physical therapy. If these methods don\’t work and the case is severe with degenerative change of the spine then they may consider surgery. However even after all of these treatments many people will still experience severe, debilitating pain. There is even a name for it, failed back surgery syndrome.
Ideally a patient like this would have been to a Chiropractor as part of the conservative portion of care before surgery but that isn\’t always the case. After a patient has surgery they can still seek out Chiropractic care but the treatment options and goals may be limited depending on the type of surgery. After all we aren\’t going to go in with a Black and Decker and start removing screws and hardware.
This case study was a woman who experienced just what is described above. She had two different surgerys on her lower back. One to remove a disc in the lower part of her spine and the second was to install metal rods to hold the lowest vertebra in her back to her pelvis. After these surgerys she was still experiencing debilitating pain despite the surgery and being on 13 (yes 13!) different medications. This the point she decided to try Chiropractic care.
Her Chiropractic exam revealed she had subluxations or misalignment in vertebra in her lower back, mid back and neck. She also had a lumbar scoliosis curve and her torso was shifted to the side. The Chiropractic treatment was focused on correcting these structural misalignments in her spine. She was put on a treatment plan consisting of Chiropractic adjustments and mirror image exercises to correct her structural shifts.
Due to the degenerative changes in her spine and the extent of the structural shifts she was on a corrective program of care that consisted of two visits per week for a total of 6 weeks. She was re-evaluated at this time and there were improvements to the shifts in her spine and her pain levels had started to decrease. She continued care at once per week for another 6 weeks. After the twelve weeks of care she had further improvements in the structure of her spine and marked reduction in her pain levels. She stated her quality of life was greatly improved.
This is a great study showing it\’s never too late to try Chiropractic care.
