Answering one simple question would help greatly in prioritizing the best health care interventions: Does “it” safely and effectively restore normal function to the body?
The recent meningitis outbreak draws attention to the fact that millions of people get steroid shots in their back to relieve pain. While the outbreak may be blamed on poorly regulated and contaminated medication, it raises the question of the safety and effectiveness of this intervention, when other safe and effective procedures exist that not only decrease back pain but actually improve the normal mechanics of the spine.
If someone has neck or back pain, it is most likely due to faulty mechanics of the spine, including dysfunction in the joints and soft tissues around the spine. As a measure of effectiveness, one can ask if injecting a medication into the spine will actually improve the mechanics, which is the cause of the pain. Furthermore, using a medication to “over-ride” or cover up the source of the pain, without doing any structural treatment to improve the faulty mechanics, allows the problem to continue to deteriorate unattended.
This downward spiral is a classic example of how our health care costs are escalating at such a rapid rate. Allowing body parts to continue to deteriorate is an expensive and ineffective use of health care resources and tax-payer dollars. It is akin to periodically “painting over rust” and so often leads to more serious, more expensive, and more invasive problems later on, when the further deteriorated body part is totally broken beyond repair.
Chiropractic and Applied Kinesiology interventions have been shown to be safe and effective for the treatment of back and neck pain. Furthermore, their effectiveness is based on restoring normal function to the body and doing so without medications. To learn more, check out the website of the International College of Applied Kinesiology, www.icakusa.com. My book, “Your Inner Pharmacy“, also explains the thought process of Applied Kinesiology and how it may be able to help with reducing back pain and improving your health. Actually reducing back pain and improving your health at the same time, by restoring normal function to the body, is a far superior approach.