Back pain is extremely difficult to live with, as everyone who does live with it knows intimately. Many back ailments can actually be solved without invasive surgery, giving patients a new lease on life without the risk, cost and recovery time of an operation. B3 Medical in Wesley Chapel, FL offers a selection of expert services that can provide back pain relief without having to “undergo the knife.”
The Difficult Back
There are many types of back pain and reasons for it. Acute back pain comes has an obvious cause strain, a fall or an injury. Back pain of this type usually heals within a matter of days or weeks. If the pain goes on long term, it is classified as chronic back pain. This is a condition that won’t resolve itself without medical help. Relying on medication for pain relief is unhealthy and incurs the risk of addiction.
Back pains are often difficult to image and accurately diagnose. Many back pains are “referred” pains where the actual source of the pain is some distance from where it actually hurts. Because the back is such a complex network, surgical procedures should be approached with caution. Even under the best of circumstances, back surgery carries real medical risk. Fortunately, many common back issues can be resolved without an invasive operation.
5 Back Pain Relief Options Before Getting Surgery
1) Injection-Based Therapies
Injection therapy can often provide relief from back pain with a minimally-invasive approach with both immediate and long-term benefits. These injections can be undertaken for different goals. Some are intended simply to anesthetize the pain, while others introduce healing agents into the trouble spot. Still others are intended to “trick” the body into healing its own injury.
Depending on the specific issue with the back, injection treatments can offer dramatic results, particularly when combined with other prescribed therapies. Many patients feel their back pain gone by the next day after treatment or sooner. Other therapies take a few days before the effects can be felt, and the results can last for months. Sometimes a series of simple injections over time is all that’s needed to cancel back pain without dangerous medications.
2) Platelet-Rich Plasma Therapy (PRP)
Our bodies have remarkable abilities to restore damaged tissue. Over the course of time and aging, these regenerative powers become less effective. Worn, damaged tissue doesn’t heal itself completely on its own anymore. This can result in many back problems, ranging from bulging spinal discs to painful cartilage damage. PRP is a breakthrough in regenerative medicine that helps the body heal these damages on its own. Over the course of months, fresh new tissue grows the fix the injury.
In this procedure, a small amount of blood is drawn from the patient and refined in a centrifuge. The remarkable healing agents of the blood called platelets are collected and re-injected into the patient’s trouble area. The platelets immediately go to work to fix the damaged tissue and actually attract other healing agents to the area. Over the course of several months, and usually several injections, the body rebuilds the damaged tissue and the back pain has been fixed.
3) Chiropractic Care
In many cases, back pain is caused by misalignments in the spine rather than out and out damage. As mentioned, may pains in the back can have their sources located elsewhere, away from the pain, such as the neck or shoulders. Expert chiropractic services can fix these misalignments and for many, eliminate back pain in the least invasive way possible.
Chiropractic adjustments are safe and effective; it’s estimated that some 35 million Americans receive this treatment each year. Somewhere between 30-40% of these patients seek treatment for lower back pain, and more than 70% report positive results from the treatment. Spinal alignment and other precision manipulations from our expert team can solve many back issues and eliminate the need for oral pain medications. Pain without pills is one of our core missions.
4) Physical Therapy
In many cases, solving back pain is something the patient does on their own over time, performing specific exercises and instructions prescribed by a physical therapist. Our expert physical therapy team performs a thorough examination of each patient and prescribes individualized routines that the patient practices at home. Over the course of these customized exercises, the patients help heal themselves.
Physical therapy can be prescribed both as a stand-alone remedy and as an accompaniment to other treatments for back pain relief. In many cases, the combination of these remedies produces the best, longest-lasting results. Physical therapy is completely non-invasive and many patients need no further treatment than this for their back pain.
5) Massage Therapy
In this treatment, our experts manually manipulate soft tissues that can cause pain in the back, among other locations of the body. For the back, two major muscles are known to contribute to back pain: the quadratus lumborum, which covers much of the lower back, and the gluteus medius, which bluntly put can be called our butt muscle. Daily activities such as running or the gym can strain these muscles. Massage therapy soothes them.
While not all lower back pain can be traced to soft tissue sources, massage therapy can be highly therapeutic in multiple ways. It can increase circulation and flexibility, which helps with healthy mobility and the ability to keep balance and equilibrium. Back problems aren’t just painful: they can also be directly dangerous, especially for older adults. Falls are the most common cause of lethal and non-lethal injuries in seniors.
Our Approach to Pain Management
At B3 we are dedicated to the management and – when possible –full eradication of pain. Pain medications have become an epidemic in our society. At the very least they are an annoyance and expense, with physical side effects that can impact other aspects of our bodies, such as vision and elimination. At worst, they can become addictive, which is a spiral that no patient should have to go through.
We believe there are better approaches to pain than medications. While anesthetizing pain through injections is often called for, the larger goal for both doctor and patient is to solve the source of the pain, rather than mask it. While surgery is often the right call for serious back issues, in many cases back pain relief can be attained through much less invasive means. Our expert staff will perform a thorough examination and recommend state-of-the-art care solutions that can have you pain-free faster than you think.
How Do I Get Started?
Every journey begins with a step, and the first step toward eliminating back pain is a visit with our experts. We feature an integrated team of board-certified MDs, as well as chiropractors, licensed massage therapists, physical therapists, registered nurses, and athletic trainers. Call B3 Medical in Wesley Chapel, FL and begin your journey toward pain-free living.
