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The first provider you use for treating back pain
Back pain is a huge problem. It affects up to 80% of people sometime in their lifetime. And choosing the correct first provider for your back pain has a HUGE impact on how much it will cost to fix.
Of courses you can't run to the doctor for every ache and pain. But I'm not talking about a little bit of soreness. I'm talking about back pain that is it's quite debilitating and really stops you in your tracks!
The real question for choosing first choosing a provider
The question is always "what (or who) should I do for my back pain?".
You aren't a doctor. You don't know. It's not your area of expertise.
It's a complicated mess of messages out there!
You've likely seen all the ads on TV claiming to have the best cure for every ailment known to man-kind, including back pain. Your friend says one thing. Google says another. Your neighbours brothers, aunties, nephew swears he has the treatment to cure all back pain!
So the question is always:
Who can you trust?
And what provider should you first seeker your back pain?
Well, here is an interesting study to answer that exact question!
Christopher G Bise, PT, MS, DPT and others, First Provider Seen for an Acute Episode of Low Back Pain Influences Subsequent Health Care Utilization, Physical Therapy, 2023;, pzad067, https://doi.org/10.1093/ptj/pzad067
First provider used for Back Pain Influences Subsequent Health Care
Back pain varies from person to person. But the first person that you see will impact subsequent healthcare costs and utilization of different services. Said another way, the first person that you see really impacts how long it will take to get better, and how much money it will cost.
We all know costs are rising in every industry. This is no different for treatment of back pain. Despite multiple guidelines and research being done on the treatment of back pain, costs continue to rise.
Much of that cost rising, evidently, depends on the first provider that you see for your back pain.
This study looked at this exact problem. What they found were that the utilization of different healthcare resources changed depending on who you saw first. The total cost was lowest for those who saw a chiropractor or physical therapy FIRST.
If you have low back pain, see a chiropractor or physical therapist FIRST
This paper is suggests that seeing a chiropractor or physical therapist FIRST is the way to go. If you have low back pain you will likely get better faster and spend less money, if you see a chiropractor or physical therapist first.
The nice thing about chiropractic and physical therapy is that we provide non-pharmacological nonsurgical options for interventions of treating back pain. There's is mounds of research and published guidelines for back pain that suggests both chiropractic and physical therapy.
And if you want to get better, faster, and spend less money, you should probably see one.
Well, that's fun fact for you today. Hopefully you have a great rest of your day and if you're having back pain, remember: see a chiropractor, or physical therapist first! So you can get better - faster. Oh, and also end up spending less money.
If you like, you can schedule an appointment with me here.