"Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today." This is especially true when it comes to back pain. Think of your Richmond chiropractor first. Timely care for back pain and extremity pain is important. Johnson Chiropractic relieves lower back pain non-invasively, safely, and gently.

At your Richmond chiropractic clinic, it is quite common to see patients who state that they have had their back pain for two to three months. They thought (or rather hoped) it would just "go away on its own". Most of us tend to have this approach to handling health issues, but we also know it can be a mistake, correct? Well, let's consider back pain and how a delay of care may affect its course.

Johnson Chiropractic wants you to realize that when lower back pain becomes chronic, meaning it is present for longer than three months, patients are 2 to 4 times more likely to have poor short and longer term outcomes of their pain and lower back pain conditions. The Department of Emergency Medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York reports this. (1) Their study of 894 back pain patients followed up at 1 week and 3 months reveals that

• Two-thirds of them state functional disability 1 week after an emergency department visit for non-traumatic musculoskeletal low back pain.
• Nearly half report functional disability 3 months later.

The hypothesized predictors for continued back pain are

• low back pain-related functional disability at baseline
• radicular signs
• depression
• a work-related injury
• a history of chronic or recurrent lower back pain before the index episode.

It is often stated that if no treatments were given to patients with back pain and/or extremity pain that 90% of them would be well in 6 weeks. You've probably even heard that in Richmond back pain conversations. Well, an international review of 11 studies from Australia, United States, and Europe shows otherwise. Patients with lower back pain for less than 3 months' duration in primary care settings had the following outcomes:

• In the first 3 months, recovery is observed in 33% of patients.
• At one year after onset, 65% still report pain.
  • 71% at 12 months for studies that considered total absence of pain as a criterion for recovery
  • 57% at 12 months for studies that used a less stringent definition of pain
  • Australian studies found 41% continued with pain versus 69% for European or US studies.

In conclusion, this review indicates that the assumption that spontaneous recovery of back pain occurs in a large majority of patients is not justified. (2)

So don't put off professional Richmond chiropractic assessment of your spine problem and pain. Consult your Richmond chiropractor today. At Johnson Chiropractic you will find the proper examination and treatment plan for your spinal health.