Accidents And Your Body

Saturday my son who is only twenty five years old was in a fender bender at 25mph

Not a lot of damage to his car nor to the other drivers car

No one had to go to a hospital

The only thing we had to worry about was the repairs to the cars or so we thought

The very next day being a Saturday my son started to have pain in his neck and back and he was very cranky

Not having medical insurance we decided to wait till Monday to contact a Doctor if he was still hurting

Sunday hes hurting much more then before but he still wants to wait to see a doctor and has had time to talked to our auto ins agent who reminded us we had medical insurance

Monday we contact a Chiropractor that was willing to see my son on Tuesday by this time my son was in real pain and not happy having to wait but had no choice

I suggested he try and get some sleep and maybe he could take something for the pain

My Son Chris did not feel much pain on the day of the accident

But it did start to set in by the very next day

It took a few days to start to feel how bad he had been hurt

The Pain was getting to him

His back and neck felt all wrong to him

Adjustments Without Force Can Be Painfree

And Rid You Of The Suffering

Simple And Easy To Have Done

Most Insurance Companeys Pay For This Type Treatment

Only Takes A Few Minutes

You Can Be In And Out On Your Lunch break If You Dont Have Much Time

Some Offices Stay Open Late

Practitioners treating patients with acute and chronic neck and back injuries from personal injury trauma know the importance of keeping abreast of new research studies. Studies published in respected journals assist providers in educating patients, responding to ill-informed insurers, drafting reports to insurers and attorneys, rebutting IMEs and paper peer review reports, and handling deposition and trial testimony with greater confidence and ease.

A new study published in Spine provides another example of the importance of keeping current on research developments. The study, "Chronic Spinal Pain: A Randomized Clinical Trial Comparing Medication, Acupuncture, and Spinal Manipulation"1 by Giles and Muller, compared the relative effectiveness of medication, needle acupuncture and spinal manipulation for managing "chronic" spinal pain (defined as pain greater than 13 weeks in duration).

This study gathered 115 subjects without contraindications for medication, needle acupuncture, or spinal manipulation regimens between February 1999 to October 2001. They were then enrolled at an Australian Public Hospital in the Multi-Disciplinary Spinal Pain Unit. One of three separate intervention protocols were used: medication, needle acupuncture or chiropractic spinal manipulation. Patients were assessed before treatment by a sports medicine physician and a research assist for exclusion criteria using the Oswestry Back Pain Disability Index, the Neck Disability Index, the Short-Form-36 Health Survey Questionnaire, Visual Analogy Scale of pain intensity and ranges of movement. These instruments were administered at the beginning of the clinical trial and again at two weeks, five weeks, and nine weeks after the beginning of treatment.

The results of this randomized controlled clinical trial revealed:

The highest portion of patients able to return to asymptomatic status did so through manipulation 27.3%, followed by acupuncture 9.4%, and medication 5%.
Spinal manipulation achieved the best overall results, with improvement of 50% on the Oswertry Scale, 38% on the Neck Disability Index Questionnaire, 47% on the Short-Form-36 Health Survey Questionnaire, and 50% on the Visual Analogy Scale for back pain, 38% for lumbar standing flexion, 20% for lumbar sitting flexion, 25% cervical sitting flexion, and 18% for cervical sitting extension.
Acupuncture showed a slightly better result than spinal manipulation on the Visual Analogue rating for neck pain at 50% vs. 42%.
All forms of treatment resulted in some positive response according to the Short-Form-36 health survey questionnaire.
The authors concluded: "The consistency of the results provides... evidence that patients with chronic spinal pain, [greater than 13 weeks duration], spinal manipulation, if not contraindicated, results in greater short-term improvement than acupuncture or medication. However, the data does not strongly support the use of only manipulation, only acupuncture or only steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for the treatment of chronic spinal pain."
The authors also added another caveat: "It should be strongly emphasized that this study was exclusively with chronic spinal pain, and that consequently, no statement what-so-ever can be made about that potential role of medication in treatment acute spinal pain syndromes."
Staying abreast of recent developments in the medical literature advances ones own continuing knowledge base. The cutting edge information can also be used as a sword and shield in responding to misguided opinions and denials of treatment bills in the medical-legal traumatic personal injury context.

The link between medical and legal consequences of traumatic injury requires doctors and attorneys, like the personal injury recovery professionals at the law firm of Adler Giersch, to form the first lines of defense between the patient/client and the insurance companies. This medical-legal connection is natural, and serves the interests of the patient-turned-client best when the health care and legal communities work together. Reading and sharing research literature is one way of integrating the health care provider's knowledge with the personal injury attorney's advocacy skills to achieve better treatment results and fairness for the patient.

1. Lynton G. F. Giles, DC, PhD, and Reinhold Muller, PhD, Chronic Spinal Pain: A Randomized Clinical Trial Comparing Medication, Acupuncture, and Spinal Manipulation. Spine. Volume 28, Number 14, 1490-1501 (2003)

This X Ray Is A Poor Alingment Of The Neck

This Is The Way Your Neck Should Look In an X Ray

Its Hard to understand just what it feels like

But The Pain Is Real And its Hard to Deal with

Seeing A Doctor As Soon As You Can Is Your Best Choice

The Damage done to you bones and disc as well as nerve endings can cause you a lifetime of suffering

The results of his Exam showed to be worse then whiplash

whiplash of the neck would make the neck straight in a line

His Neck is in what they call hyperflexion

This xray shows a normal x-ray with the pink marker

my sons neck is in line with the green marker

This is a good time to decide if you feel good about putting your body and your life into the hands of this Doctor Before he had started to treat you

You should see others and how the are being handled as well as where he/she went to school

Did they have special training of any kind
this can be very important to you in your recovery

This is when Chris my son had Xrays and a full exam
we had time to ask Questions about the Doctor his staff
insurance claims billing

Have to come back the next day for the results

At All Times You Should Be Sitting In A Proper Possion To Maintain A Healthy Body

This Is not good for your body in any way

This can start to put pressure on your neck and back till your in pain and in need of a chiropractor

Why Pain Medication Use is Really on the Rise
By Albert Ray, MD

Over the years, confusion and misinformation surrounding the use of opioids - commonly known as narcotics - has contributed to the already significant problem of under-treating pain in the more than 70 million Americans who live with it daily. Most recently, a national news media report on federal drug prescription data concluded that retail sales of five commonly prescribed pain medications have almost doubled over the last eight years. While attention-grabbing, these kinds of reports do not provide the full story about the role of pain medication in treating chronic pain.

In fact, the increase in pain medication usage is due to several factors, including

a trend to reversing the under-treatment of pain,
more research and improved scientific understanding of pain as a disease,
increased awareness and education about how to properly treat pain, and
advances in pharmaceuticals.
Under-treatment or Poor Treatment

For many years, both the medical community and the public feared that the use of pain medications would lead to massive amounts of addiction in patients. As a result, patients most often were under-treated or not treated for pain. They were told to "be strong and bear it." This poor treatment resulted in much needless suffering for our patients. More and more health professionals now understand that pain must be treated to improve function and quality of life in those who live with chronic pain conditions.

Research

Pain research over the last 20 years has now shown us that under-treated pain can lead to pathological changes in the nerves (the peripheral nervous system) and the spinal cord and brain, which make up the central nervous system. These changes result in pain becoming a chronic disease, with consequences such as

long-term pain,
increased levels of pain and disability,
decreased ability to concentrate and difficulty with memory,
significant levels of depression and anxiety,
inability to function at home or work,
poor sleep, and
an increase in other problems such as irritable bowel syndrome, headaches, and fibromyalgia, all of which tend to become chronic problems.
The medical community is now aware of the importance of treating pain properly and aggressively to reduce or prevent these negative consequences on a person's life.

Another factor that research has shown is that most patients - if they use their opioid medications properly - will never become addicted to them. Most individuals who have problems with medication addiction have a genetic propensity to become addicted, already had an addictive disorder, or both.

The brain of a person who has an addictive disorder or the potential for such a disorder reacts differently to opioid medications than someone without such issues. In other words, the brain centers in addicted individuals process medications differently. Because of this, we now understand that addictive disorders are neurobiological disorders - meaning they are biological in nature. Psychological and social factors are secondary problems in addiction.

Consequently, the concern about becoming addicted is more problematic for someone who has been or presently is addicted to substances and for those who have a family history of alcohol or other substance abuse. In these cases, people may still benefit from medications for pain control - they just require more complex treatment by a multidisciplinary team.

Awareness and Education

The National Pain Foundation and multiple other organizations have devoted their efforts to raising awareness of pain and its consequences. This effort has led to better education among the medical community and the public in general, and people now have a place to go to learn about their pain and the options available for treating their pain - www.NationalPainFoundation.org. Medications are just one piece in the proper treatment of pain, but medications were unjustifiably being feared and underutilized.

The other result of efforts at raising awareness and improving quality of pain care for Americans brought the US Congress to declare 2000 to 2010 the Decade of Pain Care and Research. This enables researchers to obtain more money for scientific studies on pain, further improving our medical knowledge about pain.

Pharmaceutical Advances

Most of the older short-acting opioid pain medications have a greater propensity to cause addiction. Therefore, many pharmaceutical companies have worked at creating longer acting medications which tend to reduce the potential for addiction.

These companies are also working diligently to design ways to make medications more difficult to abuse, so that even someone who crushes opioids cannot get "high." This is difficult to accomplish, but it is the goal of the companies who produce these medications. Their goals are to create safe medications that adequately relieve pain and, at the same time, reduce the possibility of addiction and abuse.

A Multidisciplinary Approach to Treating Pain

The specialty of pain medicine encompasses many different experts and an arsenal of treatments and approaches. Opioids can be an effective weapon against pain; however, the over-the-top fear mongering about addictive pain medicines often keeps patients from seeking help and prevents primary care medical providers from referring people with chronic pain to pain specialists. Some of the proven medications, procedures and techniques to treat pain, in addition to opioids, include:

non-opioid pain medicines, such as anti-depressants, anti-convulsants, and non-steroidal anti-inflammatories,
neuromodulation methodologies, including electrical stimulators for the nervous system and implanted medication pumps which deliver preset amounts of medications directly to the nervous system,
physical therapy,
ice or heat,
massage,
acupuncture, and
behavioral and psychological treatments that directly alter the way a person's brain processes pain information.
Some pharmaceutical companies produced medications that have proven pain-relieving effects without any connection to opioids (eg, anti-convulsants, anti-depressants). Some of these medications have proven to be as useful or more useful than opioids in certain types of pain. These medications, then, are useful for pain control without any fear of addiction.

Neuromodulation techniques include electrical stimulation of the nervous system to reduce pain directly and implanted medication pumps that allow for various types of medications to be used without fear of abuse as the system is programmed to avoid abuse.

Much of chronic pain also relates to "soft tissue" problems, which includes the muscles, tendons, and ligaments. Physical therapy techniques which teach proper stretching, strengthening, posture, movements, and efficiency of the body are extremely important to reduce any pain related to soft tissue problems, and have been shown to affect even some central nervous system problems.

Learning how to interpret pain differently and how to respond to it differently can markedly reduce a person's perception of pain. This is one value of behavioral treatments for pain. For example, a psychological treatment called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) has been shown to be very effective in treating phantom pains, which are a result of a brain dysfunction. EMDR has been shown to markedly reduce or eliminate phantom pain by changing how the brain processes information. Some integrative treatments such as biofeedback, acupuncture, yoga, self-hypnosis, and others also offer a significant change in pain intensity as well as help patients cope better with their pain disease.

Summary

We believe the increased use of pain medications is due to a greater awareness of the serious and significant problems caused by NOT treating pain adequately, increased medical knowledge from research into pain, and an increased awareness by the medical community and the general public as to what pain is about and what is available to treat it properly and adequately.

The National Pain Foundation (www.NationalPainFoundation.org) remains committed to reducing suffering by raising awareness of pain, its consequences, and available treatments and providing reliable information for patients and family members. Contact us at anytime, and tell your friends that we are here for those who live with pain and their loved ones.

Albert Ray, M.D., chairman of the National Pain Foundation, is past president of the American Academy of Pain Medicine and the medical director of the Miami Pain Medicine Center. He is a diplomat of the American Board of Pain Medicine.

.

Walking With An Limp Can Be Painful And Embarrassing

Left Unexplained Can Cause Unnessarry Worry

Over Time Left Untreated Can Cause Much Damage To Your Hip Girdle knees And Legs

Not To Metion The Cost Of A Hip Replacement

The Possibility Of Lost Time At Work