The Secret to Successful Back Pain Recovery in Daphne, AL
Do you want to understand the trick to lasting back pain relief? It’s not resting on your couch, aching with pain as you wait for it to get better. It’s not just doing your daily physical therapy and applying ice packs. So what is it?
Physical therapies are fantastic for musculoskeletal injury, but to get the full benefits of the exercise you have to get care that corrects misalignments in the muscles plus the spine. That’s where your Daphne, AL chiropractor, Dr. Smith, can help. If you’ve sprained your back, it is likely that you have a vertebra or two out-of-place. Lengthening and strengthening your back muscles alone won’t be sufficient to remedy the misaligned vertebrae. One recent study explains why combining physical therapy with chiropractic is so worthwhile.
Investigators studied 49 individuals with chronic back pain who were randomly assigned to get either manual therapy or sham (placebo) treatment. Manual therapies consisted of treatments frequently used by Dr. Smith, such as spinal adjustments and chiropractic mobilization. Immediately after treatment, patients did exercises like stretching, muscle and motor control exercises, mobility exercises, and strengthening. The patients were treated eight times, with an assessment after three and six months.
Right away after treatment, patients receiving chiropractic care plus exercise experienced greater reductions in pain compared to the placebo plus exercise group. The advantage seen in the treatment room persisted at the three and six-month follow-up appointments. The manual therapy patients had lower disability and a pattern of reduced pain scores compared to the placebo group. These results suggest that a combined treatment of chiropractic and exercise could be better than exercise therapy alone for back pain.
So if you’d like total relief of back pain, pick up the phone and give our office in Daphne, AL a call. After a few appointments with Dr. Smith, you’ll wonder why you didn’t call sooner!
Balthazard P, et al. Manual therapy followed by specific active exercises versus a placebo followed by specific active exercises on the improvement of functional disability in patients with chronic non specific low back pain: a randomized controlled trial. BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders 2012; 13: 162.