Do you want to understand the secret of effective back pain relief? It's not lying on your couch, aching with pain as you wait for it to improve. It's not just doing your daily physical therapy and using ice packs. So what is it?
Physical therapies are fantastic for musculoskeletal injury, but to get the entire rewards of the physical activity you're going to need to get care that corrects misalignments in the muscles plus the spine. That's where your Saint Paul, MN chiropractor, Dr. Skon, can help. If you've hurt your back, it is more than likely that you have a spinal misalignment. Lengthening and conditioning your back muscles alone won't be adequate to remedy the misaligned vertebrae. One recent study explains why blending physical therapy with chiropractic is so beneficial.
Investigators studied 49 individuals with chronic back pain who were randomly assigned to receive either manual therapy or sham (placebo) treatment. Manual therapies consisted of procedures often used by Dr. Skon, like spinal adjustments and spinal mobilization. Immediately after treatment, patients did exercises like stretches, muscle and motor control exercises, mobility exercises, and conditioning. The patients were treated eight times, with an examination after three and six months.
Directly after treatment, patients receiving chiropractic plus exercise experienced larger reductions in pain compared to the placebo plus exercise group. The benefit seen in the treatment room continued at the three and six-month follow-up appointments. The manual therapy patients had lower disability and a pattern of lower pain scores compared to the placebo group. These results suggest that a blended treatment of chiropractic and exercise could be better than exercise therapy alone for back pain.
So if you want complete relief of back pain, pick up the phone and give our office in Saint Paul, MN a call. After a few appointments with Dr. Skon, 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.