Dr. Butwell Treats the Patient Not the MRI
Why do patients opt for back surgery? Pain. What conditions give them the most trouble that leads them to back surgery? Spinal stenosis. Spondylolisthesis. What symptoms do they want to get rid of? Butt pain. Leg pain. Back pain. Dr. Butwell is available as your first stop to avoid back surgery or, for some, the last stop. For many back-related-pain patients, Georgetown chiropractic care does the trick and averts back surgery.
BACK PAIN SYMPTOMS
Back pain patients report all types of painful and irritating symptoms: leg pain, numb toe(s), painful thighs, gluteal pain. (The saying that something is a “pain in the butt” is a preceise description of some back pain patients’ pain! It is a more radicular source than degenerative change of facet joints. (1)) And lumbar spinal stenosis is the most usual cause for back surgery for US adults. A study of stenosis patients who have withstood at least 3 years of suffering revealed that manual therapy and individualized exercise excelled in helping the most patients get more than 30% improvement in symptoms and 20% in function. (2) Our use of the Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management aims for at least 50% relief in 30 days with many patients getting 60%, 70%, 80% and 90% sooner than that! Dr. Butwell recognizes that there are Georgetown back pain sufferers who would celebrate with non-surgical relief like that!
BACK SURGERY: NECESSITY, COST AND IMAGING
Just how many back-pain sufferers with spinal stenosis or spondylolisthesis must have surgery? 0.8%. This is reported in a study of 497,822 patients! The surgeon authors of this paper suggested doing decompression surgery without or with fusion earlier to lower the cost of non-operative treatment. (3) Goodness! The cost of a fusion in 2006 was $40,000 (4) and $80,000 to $100,000 in 2013, making back pain the top cause of disability in the world in front of 290 other conditions. (5) [Chiropractic is reported to be just 2.9% of the cost of back pain management. (6)] Over-imaging has added expense to the treatment of back pain: 1 in 4 (25%) of patients who go to a primary care doctors and 1 in 3 (33%) who go to the emergency room received imaging. (7) And how does imaging enhance patient care and clinical outcome? Interesting question. There is no correlation between MRI findings for stenosis and the severity of pain, quality of life, depression or anxiety. (8, 9) What does boost patient care and clinical outcome? Collaboration between physicians – surgical and non-surgical spine experts – aids chronic back pain patients improve in terms of pain as well as socially and mentally. (10) Dr. Butwell invites such collaboration with you and your healthcare team! Your feeling better is our goal!
CONTACT Dr. Butwell
Listen to this PODCAST by Dr. Kurt Olding on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson. Dr. Olding shares lumbar spinal stenosis care with Cox® Technic that let a woman continue living life her way!
Schedule a non-surgical Georgetown chiropractic care appointment with Dr. Butwell today. Physical, mental and emotional pain relief may be relieved and back surgery dodged with gentle, safe chiropractic care at Dr. Butwell where patient care is based on the patient not the MRI!
