Improving Quality of Life Through Chiropractic: Effective Solutions for Lower Back Pain

In this episode, the host discusses a research paper found on PubMed about the effects of manual therapy on psychological factors and the quality of life in lumbar disc herniation patients. The study, published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, shows significant improvement in patients after chiropractic care. The host emphasizes the importance of consulting chiropractors for issues related to spinal health and criticizes the American Medical Association's historical stance against chiropractic care. He highlights how chiropractic adjustments can alleviate pain and improve mental health, urging viewers to consider chiropractic care before other medical interventions.

Research Link

www.rockforddc.com

Transcript

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Hello, Dr. Brant Hulsebus here, and welcome to another edition of Ask the Chiropractor. Ask the Chiropractor is my little podcast that I do when someone has a question about chiropractic or chiropractic care, I try to answer. I'm a chiropractor here in Rockford, Illinois. I'm a proud graduate of Palmer College of Chiropractic, and I'm happy to be the team chiropractor of the Rockford Icehogs. Let's dive into it. Hello. Today I'm going to talk about a piece of research. A lot of times when I ask the chiropractor, I like to review research. Now, as a side note, if you ever go see another type of healthcare provider and they tell you that maybe you shouldn't see the chiropractor for something, ask them for that research. Say, where did you read that? Is there a pub med article that states what you're saying I shouldn't see them for? Because PubMed is like one of the best sources of medical research. Not chiropractic research, just medical research. In order to get PubMed indexed as they call it, listed on PubMed, it goes through years of scrutiny to make sure there's no flaws in the research. So whenever I talk to you about an article, I'm always quoting from PubMed., I've said it a billion times and I'll say it again. If you ever have a question about chiropractic or chiropractic care, ask a chiropractor. They're the only ones that actually know what chiropractors do and don't do and don't let somebody quote the AMA about chiropractic Please don't ever do that Because for about 90 years the AMA said inflammatory things about chiropractic That might sound a little ridiculous or a little conspiracy theory But again, I wanted to say something unless you go look it up Look up the AMA versus Chester Wilk and Dr. Wilk sued them and won his case in the 90s all about the AMA purposely trying to destroy chiropractic and spread lies about the chiropractic profession. You can actually read the retraction on all this in the journal of the American Medical Association. The United States Supreme Court had them write a page or an article about how they had been doing this for years and years and years. But I digress. Let's talk about the research paper I found on PubMed. The research paper I'm going to talk about today is the effects of manual therapy on psychological factors and the quality of life in lumbar disc herniation patients. A single blinded randomized clinical trial. This was published in the International , Journal, of Environmental Research Public Health. 2024, September 18th. Again, just type in the effects of manual therapy and psychological factors in the quality of life PubMed for four in lumbar disc herniation patients. And you'll find the article I'm quoting. I'll put a link to this article wherever you're watching this or hearing this also, so you don't have to take my word. You can read the research yourself. I always encourage that. You know that., I have over the years quoted many articles about lumbar disc problems and how chiropractic should be one of your first choices. And that's not just me saying that. That is the North America Spinal Society composed of medical doctors, orthopedic doctors, neurosurgeon. Everybody but chiropractors. They've come to Spinal Manipulative Therapy, which is what chiropractic adjustments are called in the research, the go to thing for an acute lower back injury. The WHO also recommends chiropractic Spinal Manipulative Therapy, which we call chiropractic adjustments in the chiropractic office, should be the go to for lower back and disc problems. First thing. Try it first., this study wanted to look at a little bit more because I think more and more of the researchers are accepting this. The physicians might not be, but the research people are seeing this over and over again. So now they're starting to ask even bigger questions. Let's talk about the mental health of these patients. Are these patients doing better or worse in their chiropractic care? So what they did is they took these patients and they had them fill out a bunch of questionnaires. I'm going to try to read a couple of them off here to you. One of them is the McGill, M E L Z A C K, Pain Questionnaire, M M P Q. The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, the H A D S. The Tampa Kinesiophobia Scare, Scale, excuse me, T K S. The Pain Questionnaire. Catastrophizing Scale, PCS, and lastly the Nottingham Health Profile. These are all questionnaires dealing with the chronic pain and the suffering that people go through in their quality of life. So these patients were given 10 chiropractic visits and then afterwards they were asked to fill out the surveys again and see where they were on these scales. And I'm happy to say that there was significant improvement. Now when I say the word significant in research, that's a big deal. Because that doesn't mean a little bit, or possibly, or hey, maybe there was an improvement. There was obvious improvement. Now, why is this?, one, hopefully they were getting better. Hopefully they were able to get adjusted. And two, I believe that the chiropractors are really good at restoring hope. Chiropractors, this is something we see all the time. So when you come to see us out, don't worry. We've seen this before. We're going to help you out with this. This is what we expect to happen. These are the steps that's going to happen as we go. And so I feel like people feel more confident and the chiropractor at least portrays more confident than they're going to know what to do. Probably because it works., if I went to a typical physician, they might give me some pain meds, maybe some muscle relaxers that aren't going to make me feel too good. And tell me there's a really good chance I might have surgery because again, so I've read the research before how non steroidal anti inflammatory drugs, one of the first things they prescribe actually create chronic lower back pain. When you read the research, you can go back in several podcasts and see my quotes where I cited this. And then if that doesn't work, they'll give you a steroid shot., the research has shown, or the, actually the, if you Google search, does the manufacturer recommend steroid shots in the spine? The answer is no. Has the FDA approved shots in the spine? The answer is no. Again, we talked about this several times. The musculature around the spine, we call those stabilization muscles, are different than the rest of your skeletal muscle. Therefore, they behave different. So giving shots like you would in the shoulder into the spine, expecting the same result when we're dealing with different musculature on a cellular level is just not right. It's not happening. And then, so if the medicine they prescribe doesn't work very good and the shots they prescribe don't work very good, then they give you spina bifida. physical therapy and the physical therapist doesn't understand about stabilization muscles by using older research and not current research. Physical therapy doesn't have a good outcome and that leaves you with surgery. And almost every one of us knows somebody that went through this process and never saw the chiropractor. It was never suggested to them. And that causes depression, that causes anxiety. These are real big problems. Because Dr. Palmer always said the three things that cause your spine to go are thoughts, traumas, and toxins. Everybody gets trauma, right? You fall down, you're going to hurt your back. Everybody understands the toxins, right? You put garbage in your body, you get garbage back. But the last one was thoughts, distress. So if you're going to the doctor for lower back pain, and the lower back pain, the anxiety is getting worse, and the mental health is getting worse, guess what happens to the back? It doesn't get better, it typically gets worse, which makes you feel worse, and increases the anxiety, increases the problems. I've dealt with people with medical frustration, where they're trying to get to a higher level clinic, but they can't get through the hurdles. And I truly worry about their mental health as they go through these things. We see this all the time with people that get more and more anxiety, more and more depressed, and we watch their health deteriorate. That's what makes me so proud to be a chiropractor. Because I've always seen people get better. I've always seen people have emotional outcomes after we take care of them. I often see that little glimmer of hope. reappear in their eyes. Often when I have a new patient or a student that comes to see me, they say, your clinic seems to do lots of different things. You have a specialty. And I often say it's hope. We help people get the hope back. When my grandmother was very ill, and my grandfather was taking her from western Iowa to Chicago back in the 1940s, and they thought she was going to die from ovarian cancer, have other problems, and never be able to be a mother, they met Dr. Palmer at Palmer College of Chiropractic. Dr. Palmer took a look at my grandmother and was able to predict half of her health history, gave her chiropractic adjustments, restored her hope, and hence my Uncle Roger, my dad, and my Uncle Jim were born, and here I am. So chiropractors have always been great at seeing that hope. I just got back from spending time at the Madison, Wisconsin, at the Strongman contest where I had the opportunity to join the team chiropractor there. And these people are big people. These are the people that carry cars. They call it a yoke, but they pick up a car and they literally carry a car across the stage. And these people, this is their livelihood, this is where they make their money, this is what they've worked their entire life to. And they come over to the chiropractors there, especially Dr. McDougle, and they're having a problem. And Dr. McDougle is able to adjust them, and you just literally see their faces change., everybody gets up, he likes to hug, but the thing is, most of the ones who get up, they hug him. He doesn't have to ask for the hug. They're already coming at him. I got to witness that the last four days. It was amazingly powerful, amazingly exciting to see this., these are Massive people. We're talking massive, massive people. I got to adjust a few of them, too. It was pretty awesome. Just like I said, to be able to see them do a squat again, have no pain after years of no pain. So many people there said they had spent thousands of dollars to get their shoulder fixed and they were still in agonizing pain. They spent 15 minutes with the chiropractor and all that pain is gone. Just like that. So yeah, chiropractic restores hope. This research paper shows what I've seen in a thousand patient's eyes and I've got the experience a thousand times over again., the quality of life improves. So if you know someone who's been suffering a long time for lower back pain, you know there's a lot of anxiety and depression there too. Pick them up, make them feel good, get them to a chiropractor. You got nothing to lose. If you go to a chiropractor and you don't think it's working, you can always do the other choices. But once that back's been surgically altered, once you've had a bunch of chemicals put in your back, there is no going backwards. Try the drug free way first. Do what the WHO says first. Do what the National, the North America Spy Society does first. Do what all the research and all the science says first. Go see your chiropractor. If you got a question for me about chiropractic or chiropractic care, why don't you leave a comment wherever you're listening or hearing this and maybe next week you'll be the topic of the week. I promise to continue to do my research. I promise to continue to , look for new things to share with you, scientifically proven things to share with you, not just something I heard on the street or propaganda. I'll share with you the finest research from the finest sources and I will continue to deliver it to you. Alright everybody, stay happy, stay strong, and like I said, if you have a question, go ahead and ask away. Thank you.