Do you want to understand the secret of lasting back pain relief? It's not lying on your couch, suffering in pain while you wait for it to improve. It's not just doing your daily exercise therapy and icing. So what is it?
Exercise therapies are wonderful for musculoskeletal injury, but to get the total benefits of stretching and strengthening exercises, you're going to need to get treatment that corrects misalignments in the muscles and the spine. That's where Dr. Block comes in. If you have hurt your back, it is more than likely that you have a spinal misalignment. Lengthening and conditioning your back muscles alone won't be sufficient to remedy the out-of-place vertebrae. One recent study explains why blending physical therapy with chiropractic is so worthwhile.
Investigators studied 49 individuals with chronic back pain who were randomly assigned to receive either manual therapy or a sham treatment. Manual therapies included procedures regularly used by your Chesapeake, VA chiropractor, like spinal adjustments and spinal mobilization. Directly after treatment, patients did exercises like stretches, muscle and motor control workouts, mobility exercises, and conditioning. The patients received eight treatments, with an examination after three and six months.
Right away after treatment, patients treated with chiropractic care plus exercise experienced better pain relief than the placebo exercise group. The advantage seen in the treatment room persisted at the three and six-month follow-up sessions. The chiropractic patients had reduced disability and lower pain scores compared to the placebo group. These results suggest that an integrated treatment of chiropractic and exercise could be better than exercise therapy alone for back problems.
So if you'd prefer complete relief of back pain, pick up the phone and give our office in Chesapeake a call. After a few sessions with Dr. Block, you'll wonder why you didn't call earlier!
Reference
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. doi:10.1186/1471-2474-13-162.