Dr. Butwell Manages Back Pain Fear with our Chiropractic Patients
Had back pain before? Yes? It is common to fear its recurrence, but do not let it hijack your life! This time of year, just think of Santa. Think he’s had back pain before throwing all those boxes and bags? Dr. Butwell imagines so! Santa can’t quit, and neither can you. Georgetown chiropractic care can help manage new back pain and chronic back pain and guide our Georgetown back pain sufferers to be a bit less fearful and a bit more confident getting around this holiday season.
FEAR OF BENDING
Your Georgetown chiropractor realizes this: many low back pain patients fear bending forward. Researchers studied this common clinical finding and found that this fear of bending forward also affects postural sway or balance by interfering with hip balance control, causing weight shifting from side to side to maintain balance. (1) What is an unwanted effect of being unbalanced? A fall. Dr. Butwell finds it very important to help our back pain patients – especially our older back pain patients – stay balanced and upright!
HELP TO KEEP BALANCE AND DECREASE FEAR
“There is an app for that!” Just what our older Georgetown chiropractic patients with balance issues want to hear?! As much as “tech” can frustrate a few of its users, especially some older users, it can help! The novel smartphone-based Gait&Balance App is available. Researchers have verified that it is able to measure age-related differences in balance not necessarily noted during clinical exam measurements like postural stability, step time, step length and cycle. (2) These insights can assist healthcare providers like your chiropractor create a more beneficial and individualized treatment plan to reduce fear of movement and increase balance. This is quite hopeful, so much so that chiropractic researchers are exerting more research effort to measure the benefits of multimodal chiropractic care in its ability to influence gait, balance and/or fall risk and prevention. (3) One positive study with older lumbar spinal stenosis patients (average age 83.5 years) found that their postural sway and entropy in addition to function and symptomatology were improved with a course of chiropractic care including Cox® Technic Flexion Distraction Decompression spinal manipulation. (4) Dr. Butwell offers this treatment along with nutrition and exercise to keep our chiropractic patients moving, fearless, and balanced!
BIOMARKERS FOR BACK PAIN
One new nutrition discovery this month may also aid this effort. It comes from researchers evaluating levels of biomarkers – C-reactive protein, vitamin D, neuropeptide Y and others - in low back pain patients tested using blood tests with pain and disability. Vitamin D which appears in many health news reports today also seems to be a potential biomarker for back pain relief and disability. A respected randomized control study found a correlation between vitamin D levels and changes in both pain and disability for low back pain patients cared for with spinal manipulation. (5) Some day, we may do blood tests to check for back pain risks!
CONTACT Dr. Butwell
Listen to this PODCAST with Dr. Joel Dixon on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he describes his helping a Vietnam veteran deal with his back pain for 20 years, incorporating the Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management.
Make your Georgetown chiropractic appointment soon. Calling all our Georgetown back pain patients! Bring us your back pain and your fear of back pain, bending and falling. We can help you handle them as well as Santa fearlessly and efficiently delivers all his packages in one night!
