Having More Than One Symptom May Impact Your Chiropractic Care
Something I have seen many times, is when a new person presents to me declaring only problem, it could be headaches, low back pain or even leg pain, when I ask them if they have any other health concerns, the majority of people say "yes". Sometimes the person will say they only have one or two problems and I will end up documenting over a dozen symptoms. That's why the title of the Danish study I'll discuss below got my attention.
The way chiropractic care can positively impact so many seemingly unrelated conditions, never fails to impress me. That’s why I think it's so important for me to spend the time to find out about all the “other” issues people might have, and to monitor them from time to time during reevaluation sessions.
On their initial visit, people usually have two or three primary problems that they share because these are the things most affecting their life. It may be that a particular symptom is affecting their golf game or ability to sleep. However, knowing about their other symptoms may help me understand the cause of their bothersome symptoms.
Also, finding ways to minimise or resolve the minor symptoms maybe easier and faster to achieve than resolving the primary symptoms, which can then provide encouragement to the person who persists with chiropractic care long enough for those primary symptoms to resolve.
A Danish study of over 2000 people seeing chiropractors observed that for those with low back pain, there is a 20 - 49% chance that there would also be other health conditions. These issues were likely to be things like fitness, strength, endurance, balance and chronic health issues along with the pain that is usually what motivated them to come in and see a Chiropractor.
Comorbidity is the term used when a patient is suffering from multiple health issues at the same time. If you have a comorbidity, then you are more likely to require more treatment over a longer period of time. The Danish study reported that “patients with high lower back pain intensity combined with multimorbidity showed a poorer recovery than patients without chronic diseases.” This doesn’t mean improvement isn’t possible, however it does indicate it may take longer to achieve the desired outcomes because of the complications of having multiple health issues.
It’s interesting and helpful to note that the researchers also found that “generally speaking, people with multimorbidity and co-occurring musculoskeletal pain report high levels of disability, as well as more mental health problems, physical inactivity and obesity.” It’s not clear if the low physical activity and obesity caused
the low back pain, or if the low back pain caused the low physical activity and obesity. However, if we stop to think about it, we know that it can go either way, and can start a downward spiral towards poor health. Therefore, reducing pain while increasing strength, flexibility and endurance using chiropractic care and gentle exercise can be a very effective way to improve health and quality of life for those with multiple symptoms. To see the full study, please feel free to click here.
Dr Jason W. Barritt B.Sc (Hons) DC
Chiropractor
Move better. Feel better. LIVE BETTER.
Reference: Rafn, B.S., Hartvigsen, J., Siersma, V. et al. Multimorbidity in patients with low back pain in Danish chiropractic practice: a cohort study. Chiropr Man Therap 31, 8 (2023).