Vancouver Chiropractic Newsletter for February 2017
Combined DC/MD Care is Beneficial
Patient benefit when doctors work together. Working with a Vancouver healthcare colleague to help one of our Vancouver chiropractic patients is always an honor! A new study shows that when family medicine residents and chiropractors cooperatively care for older patients with back pain, everyone benefits. Patients liked it. Both types of doctors liked getting to know each other’s treatment approaches. (1) While another study reveals that multidisciplinary conferences involving many types of providers lessen the use of spinal fusion for low back and improve the matching of surgical type to the proper patient type. (2) It is all good! Vancouver Disc Centers is ready to help!
When Would Back Surgery Be Suitable?
Research reports that 88% of cervical radiculopathy patients and 70% of lumbar radiculopathy patients show improvement within 4 weeks of symptom onset. Therefore, optimal timing for surgery for cervical radiculopathy (arm/upper extremity pain) is within 8 weeks of symptom onset though 4 weeks may be contemplated and between 4 and 8 weeks for lumbar radiculopathy (leg/lower extremity pain). (3) Vancouver Disc Centers, of course, aims to prevent surgery and recognizes when it is necessary and is ready to refer any Vancouver back pain sufferer when it’s time. Count on Vancouver Disc Centers for your non-surgical back pain and neck pain care.
Eat Healthy!
It’s not just a motto! Healthy eating improves bone mineral density and lowers the risk of osteoporosis. Those who eat more vegetables and fruits have less osteoposis and higher bone mineral density in middle and older age. If you are one of those Vancouver chiropractic patients who don’t like vegetables much, you are in luck! Fruit more so than vegetables seems to be better. (4) Less osteoporosis can potentially mean less back pain later in life, so enjoy some veggies and fruit today!
Back Pain’s Relationship to Vitamin D
Vancouver chronic low back pain sufferers who also have low vitamin D levels benefit from vitamin D supplementation. Improved vitamin D levels via supplementation show reduced pain intensity and improved function ability in chronic low back pain patients. (5) Vancouver Disc Centers loves that such an easy thing as a nutritional supplement may help our Vancouver chiropractic patients so much!
Our body is one big linked system! Vancouver Disc Centers knows this to be true! Researchers suggest that tinnitus may be improved when cervical spine disorders are helped. There is a connection between the dorsal cochlear nucleus in the auditory pathway and the cervical spine. (6) Does tinnitus with a cervical spine condition disturb you? A Vancouver friend? Vancouver Disc Centers offers gentle chiropractic care to help them both potentially! Vancouver chiropractic may help.
Osteoporosis and Obesity – The Link
When we think about osteoporosis, we used to think thin people were at risk. That’s what Vancouver Disc Centers would think. But not now! New research reports that obesity is a big risk factor for osteoporosis since fat is used by inflammatory cytokines to negatively influence bone metabolism. (7) Now, that’s new news. All of us Vancouver folks – thin and overweight – must be attentive of osteoporosis risk and how to manage it.
If any of these topics affect you or a Vancouver loved one, schedule a Vancouver chiropractic appointment today with Vancouver Disc Centers. It’s the first step toward relief!