We see a great number of folks with headaches in our Otown office, and TJ Delorie has been able to provide relief for many of them. Furthermore, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that one half of all adults have difficulty with some kind of headache problem, so this actually isn’t unexpected. One of the most common kinds of headaches which our patients are afflicted by is cervicogenic headache which, happily, chiropractic can often help.

What is a Cervicogenic Headache?

A cervicogenic headache is one that originates from a problem in the cervical spine. It could be due to an issue with either the spine itself (particularly, the vertebrae, joints, or discs), or it may be due to a problem in the muscles and tendons of your neck. This dysfunction in your spine contributes to constriction or irritation of the spinal nerves, which can result in headache pain.

How can you distinguish if the headache you are suffering from is a cervicogenic headache? Besides receiving a diagnosis from a healthcare specialist, a frequent symptom of cervicogenic headaches is tenderness or discomfort in your neck. This is sometimes followed by pain in the back of your head or between your shoulder blades.

How Chiropractic Helps with Cervicogenic Headaches

Considering cervicogenic headaches will not go away until whatever issue is triggering them is corrected, it is important to receive treatment as opposed to just trying to "wait it out." Chiropractic care is an excellent approach, and one that offers a great deal of pain relief.

In one study published in Chiropractic & Osteopathy, experts studied 80 people who had recurrent cervicogenic headaches. Half got chiropractic care and the other fifty percent underwent light massage therapy. Each participant was examined 12 and 24 weeks after the treatment and it was discovered that chiropractic offered the optimum outcomes.

In particular, this study noted that chiropractic adjustments gave patients better pain relief and diminished the number of headaches that occurred. In addition, it also reduced the disability that resulted from these painful headaches.

To find out what TJ Delorie can do for you and your headache pain, call us today. We'll do our best to get you the pain relief you need!

References

• Haas M, Schneider M, Vavrek D. Illustrating risk difference and number needed to treat from a randomized controlled trial of spinal manipulation for cervicogenic headache. Chiropractic & Osteopathy 2010 18(9).
• World Health Organization. (2012, October). Headache disorders. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs277/en/

We care for a large number of patients in our Otown clinic, and TJ Delorie has helped many people overcome a wide array of health challenges. Even so, a common worry that seems to stop many men and women from getting treatment is whether or not chiropractic care is safe. Well, according to three separate studies (out of many on the issue), the answer to this question is a resounding: "Yes! Chiropractic is safe!"

Chiropractic is Safe, According to Australian Study

The first study(1) was published in Spine and involved 183 adults between the ages of 20 and 85. Each test subject reported suffering from spinal pain, and half of the people received actual chiropractic care visits whereas the remaining patients received two fake chiropractic treatment sessions. Data was collected after each real or fake adjustment to identify whether or not any unpleasant reactions occurred as a result of the genuine chiropractic adjustments.

The doctors found that no participants reported any significant negative adverse reactions whatsoever after getting one or two sessions of chiropractic. Some participants did state that they experienced a headache (just 9% of people) or muscle stiffness (37%) after treatment, but the results were not of a serious nature.

Large US Survey Confirms that Chiropractic is Safe

A second study(2), also released in the influential publication, Spine, was performed in an effort to establish the safety of chiropractic. The study group was much larger -- 20,000 patients. Each participant received chiropractic adjustments of the cervical spine, with over 50,000 total adjustments for all patients.

Once again, the investigators discovered no serious adverse side effects. The authors computed the risk of total negative effects to be about 6 out of every 10,000 consultations or every 100,000 treatment sessions. Plus, just as with the first study, some people did report non-serious, milder, side effects such as dizziness (about 1.6%) or a headache (4%), and this caused the researchers to conclude that "the risk of a serious adverse event, immediately or up to 7 days after treatment, was low to very low."

Chiropractic Care Is Safe for Your Children

The third research paper(3) is unique from the first two pieces of research, as it focuses on the safety of chiropractic care for kids. In this article, the researchers investigated results reported by both chiropractors and parents involving 816 children who participated in 7,173 chiropractic treatment sessions.

Out of 5,438 chiropractic appointments made for the kids, chiropractors answering the survey reported only three cases where there were adverse effects. When parents were surveyed, they indicated only two adverse side effects out of 1,735 visits. Furthermore, both chiropractors and parents reported "a high rate of improvement with respect to the children's presenting complaints."

Based on these three studies (and many more!), chiropractic care has been deemed safe and effective for everyone. To learn what chiropractic can do for you, call our Otown office and make an appointment today at 724-123-1234.

References

1. Walker BF, Hebert JJ, Stomski NJ, Clarke BR, Bowden RS, Losco B, French SD. Outcomes of usual chiropractic. The OUCH randomized controlled trial of adverse events. Spine 2013;38(20):1723-9.
2. Thiel HW1, Bolton JE, Docherty S, Portlock JC. Safety of chiropractic manipulation of the cervical spine: a prospective national survey. Spine 2007;32(21):2375-8.
3. Alcantara J, Ohm J, Kunz D. The safety and effectiveness of pediatric chiropractic: a survey of chiropractors and parents in a practice-based research network. Explore NY 2009;5(5): 290-5.

TJ Delorie works with countless sciatica patients here in our Otown office, and quite a few of these individuals were worried that they might require surgery to eliminate their pain. The most recent research reveals that a large number of people don't need surgery for this prevalent problem, and that chiropractic is more effective at clearing up sciatic nerve pain.

A popular surgery for sciatica is microdiscectomy, and in a 2010 study, researchers examined 80 women and men with sciatica who were referred for this procedure.

Forty patients were then randomly sorted into one of two groups. The first group was to receive surgical microdiscectomy and the second group received chiropractic care.

Both groups improved; however, no obvious difference in outcome was reported one year post-treatment between either group. Furthermore, roughly 60 percent of the participating subjects who could not find assistance from any other treatment method "benefited from spinal manipulation to the same degree as if they underwent surgical intervention."

Put another way, chiropractic delivered the same positive benefits as surgery without needing to go through the greater levels of surgery-based pain or suffer through lengthy recovery times often affiliated with that specific treatment method. Plus, you also don't run the risks associated with surgical microdiscectomy, including nerve root damage, bowel or bladder incontinence, bleeding, or infection.

Surgery should be the last resort for sciatica pain. If you live in Otown and you're being affected by back pain or sciatica, give TJ Delorie a call today at 724-123-1234. We'll help identify the start of your pain and work hard to get you relief.

References

• McMorland, G et al. Manipulation or microdiskectomy for sciatica? A prospective randomized clinical study. Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics 2010;33(8):576-584.
• Solberg TK, Nygaard OP, Sjaavik K, Hofoss D, Ingebrigtsen T. The risk of "getting worse" after lumbar microdiscectomy. European Spine Journal 2005;14(1):49-54.
  

We see quite a few people with back pain in our Otown office, and TJ Delorie has helped a lot of them get relief with chiropractic care. At the same time, recovering from back pain doesn't necessarily mean having to make a choice between chiropractic care and medical treatment, as many people utilize both types of care with great success.

Study Confirms Chiropractic and Medical Care Work Together

In a report published by the medical journal Spine experts¹ looked at a group of active-duty military personnel between the ages of 18 and 35 who claimed both acute pain and limited function due to back pain. Some of the test subjects engaged in treatment via standard medical therapy, while the remainder received chiropractic adjustments together with standard medical care, as researchers wanted to see which patients fared better.

The authors discovered that the patients who got standard medical care combined with chiropractic care scored "significantly better" than the patients who got medical care alone; 73 percent reported positive benefits in comparison to just 17% of the medical treatment only group who indicated the same amount of improvement. This was true regarding both pain and level of function at two and four weeks.

Accordingly, incorporating these two forms of care can greatly benefit you--the patient--offering advantages when compared to medical care alone. However, while chiropractic and medicine can work alongside each other, chiropractic offers some unique strengths over medical therapy.

Where Chiropractic Pulls Ahead

Although it might seem as if each approach plays a 50/50 role, there is one significant benefit that chiropractic care has over medical care and that is in patient satisfaction. In fact, a piece of research conducted at UCLA² that was published in the American Journal of Public Health found that, on average, chiropractic patients are generally more satisfied with their recovery than patients undergoing medical care.

According to the researchers, the main factors that patients preferred over medical treatment were "self-care advice and explanation of treatment." This isn't unexpected, as chiropractors typically spend much more time advising their patients as to how they can improve their health on their own, as well as discussing more thoroughly what to expect from chiropractic care.

Chiropractic Offers a Holistic Approach

Certainly, the strategies associated with chiropractic are quite different than those provided with medical treatment, but a large amount of the difference is the fact that chiropractic is a holistic approach to health and well-being. In contrast to focusing on just relieving the symptoms, chiropractic means searching for the root cause of your pain, which often means greater improvement as you are tackling the problem at its source.

Furthermore, while medication is sometimes helpful for managing certain conditions, many health issues respond well to natural forms of treatment such as chiropractic. This means fewer negative responses to drugs and longer-lasting results.

You don't have to struggle with back pain or other health issues. Give our Otown office a call today at 724-123-1234. We'll work to help you get and continue to be free from back pain.

References

1. Goertz CM, Long CR, Hondras MA, Petri R, Delgado R, Lawrence DJ, Owens EF, Meeker WC. Adding chiropractic manipulative therapy to standard medical care for patients with acute low back pain: results of a pragmatic randomized comparative effectiveness study. Spine 2013;38(8):627-634.
2. Hertzman-Miller RP1, Morgenstern H, Hurwitz EL, Yu F, Adams AH, Harber P, Kominski GF. Comparing the satisfaction of low back pain patients randomized to receive medical or chiropractic care: results from the UCLA low-back pain study. American Journal of Public Health 2002;92(10):1628-1633.

Regrettably, a large number of our Otown patients are familiar with the pain caused by a herniated disc all too well. On a positive note, TJ Delorie has helped many people with disc pain, and a number of medical studies have confirmed that chiropractic care can help patients recover from this kind of problem.

Research on Herniated Discs and Chiropractic

In one study, doctors from Switzerland recruited 148 patients who were coping with pain in their lower back and legs due to a herniated disc (which was confirmed through magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI). Each person then received chiropractic adjustments that focused on the area of his or her disc problem.

Data was collected after the first treatment session at set intervals--namely, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 12 weeks, 6 months, and 1 year--to establish what kind of short-term and long-term effects, if any, chiropractic offers when it comes to resolving this particular condition. Among the information obtained was the person's self-reported changes in both lumbar and leg pain.

Researchers found that, overall, the patients reported "significant improvement" for both types of pain every time the results were collected. In fact, over 90% of the individuals reported that their pain "improved" within the first three months, with 88% still citing improvement one year after their first treatment session.

Even those people who were defined as "chronic" still claimed an improvement in pain at a rate of 89% one year beyond when treatment first began. This is the same positive result that was found in the following case study.

Case Study Results

In this report, a 26-year-old man had presented with disc herniation symptoms such as pain in the low back, left leg, and left groin area, along with left foot drop and muscle weakness. He had suffered with these issues for more than two years after sustaining an athletic injury, and his disc herniation was confirmed via MRI.

After receiving chiropractic, "The patient responded favorably and his multi-symptom complex resolved within 90 days of treatment." In addition, the patient was still enjoying relief one year after the chiropractic intervention.

Studies like these show how beneficial chiropractic can be when it comes to alleviating herniated disc pain and relieving the symptoms they cause. So, if you are suffering from back pain caused by a herniated disc and wish to find some relief, chiropractic can be an effective solution.

Don't suffer from chronic herniated disc pain. Give our Otown office a call today at 724-123-1234 for a consultation or appointment.

References

• Leemann S, Peterson CK, Schmid C, Anklin B, Humphreys BK. Outcomes of acute and chronic patients with magnetic resonance imaging-confirmed symptomatic lumbar disc herniations receiving high-velocity, low-amplitude, spinal manipulative therapy: a prospective observational cohort study with one-year follow-up. Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics 2014;37(3):155-163.
• Polkinghorn BS, Colloca CJ. Treatment of symptomatic lumbar disc herniation using activator methods chiropractic technique. Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics 1998;21(3):187-196.