What’s your view of chiropractic care? Chiropractors see themselves as hands-on practitioners. They also feel their patients expect hands-on care. In recent years, they were challenged to use remote consultations as a concern was that these don’t allow for physical examination that would lead to as definitive and well-informed diagnosis and treatment plan as they would like. (1) Recent analyses like one titled“Can You Be a Manual Therapist Without Using Your Hands?” wrote that telehealth has a place in helping chronic musculoskeletal pain patients with pain and function improvement via advice on exercise and such. Some other positives were convenience, flexibility, undivided attention, self-management, exercise guidance, pain education, etc. (2) And yet chiropractic hands-on care is at the core of chiropractic. Three distinctly hands-on professions – chiropractic, osteopathy, and physiotherapy – wrestle with placebo and nocebo effects in their care delivery. In the past, the placebo effect was often mentioned as a way of negating positive treatment outcomes with these hands-on approaches. Today, it is increasingly recognized for its beneficial contribution to relief. The nocebo effect was described as a potential negative effect on outcomes due to things like a patients’ past experiences, concepts, expectations, and even a healthcare professional’s interaction with the patient. (3) Know that your chiropractor works to enhance any possible placebo effect and downplay any possible nocebo effect to provide you with the best possible pain-relieving clinical outcome with our hands-on treatment that we both most likely view as the chiropractic forte!

TIP OF THE MONTH:  Reduce the (Disc) Pressure!

This advice can be for blood pressure, holiday pressure, peer pressure! In the chiropractic world, we chiropractors want to reduce intradiscal disc pressures when they are elevated causing low back pain, neck pain, radicular arm pain and sciatic leg pain. The Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management incorporates protocols of Cox® Technic Flexion Distraction Decompression (CTFDD) spinal manipulation to reduce intradiscal pressures. In a new report, researchers documented significantly reduced intradiscal pressures at all studied lumbar disc levels proposing that CTFDD may be able to pull a protruded nucleus pulposus back to the disc’s center and allow better flow of nutrients into the disc. (4) We may not be able to reduce all the pressures of life, but we can at least reduce one! Bring your painful spine to us. Reducing spinal disc pressures may even help you manage the other pressures of life a little more easily, too. 

Listen to this PODCAST with Dr. James Cox, developer of CTFDD, on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he details the importance of disc nutrition in managing spine pain with The Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management.

Happy Holidays! 

We appreciate your placing your spinal health needs in our hands all year long!

Contact us to make your next appointment soon.

References for HEALTHY NEWS – December 2022

1. Derbyshire S, Field J, Vennik J, Sanders M, Newell D. “Chiropractic is manual therapy, not talk therapy”: a qualitative analysis exploring perceived barriers to remote consultations by chiropractors. Chiropr Man Therap. 2021 Nov 25;29(1):47. doi: 10.1186/s12998-021-00404-2. PMID: 34823546; PMCID: PMC8613511.
2. Saragiotto BT, Sandal LF, Hartvigsen J. Can you be a manual therapist without using your hands? Chiropr Man Therap. 2022 Nov 14;30(1):48. doi: 10.1186/s12998-022-00457-x. PMID: 36376968; PMCID: PMC9664669.
3. Hohenschurz-Schmidt D, Thomson OP, Rossettini G, Miciak M, Newell D, Roberts L, Vase L, Draper-Rodi J. Avoiding nocebo and other undesirable effects in chiropractic, osteopathy and physiotherapy: An invitation to reflect. Musculoskelet Sci Pract. 2022 Dec;62:102677. doi: 10.1016/j.msksp.2022.102677. Epub 2022 Oct 21. PMID: 36368170.
4. Gudavalli MR, Cramer GD, Patwardhan AG. Changes in Intradiscal Pressure During Flexion-Distraction Type of Chiropractic Procedure: A Pilot Cadaveric Study. Integrative Medicine Reports. Dec 2022.209-214.http://doi.org/10.1089/imr.2022.0002