Are anti-depressives better than Chiropractic for spinal pain?
After 30 years of practicing chiropractic, the most disturbing trend I have seen in health care in the last decade in my clinics in New Zealand and Australia is under the “medications taken section” of my fill-in case histories.
It appears that an increasing larger percentage of people than I would have ever have imagined, are “hooked” on anti depressives medication that has been prescribed.
When asked “why?” (as I am curious from an overall patient health assessment), the most interesting common comments was the prescribing practitioner had advised them that their spinal pain was “making them tense and mentally anxious so the anti depressives would hopefully reduce this negative mental state and even possibly lessen the patients spinal pain?”
This medical view is reinforced by a feeling that common spinal issues that patients experience are too hard to understand and measure. The vast majority of medics are not confident in “hands on” examinations of the spine as medical school training does not emphasise this tactile specialty, but instead mostly teaches prescribing drugs for musculoskeletal pain. Hence, most patients are readily given medications by medics as a first option for spinal pain and also for headaches which is another condition that chiropractors see often.
The most concerning trend is these strong psychotropic drugs normally have not been prescribed for a few weeks but too frequently for many months to years!
Our brain and nervous system is what registers or interprets what we see of the world. Two separate brains and nervous systems that look exactly the same thing may have completely different experiences. One may see the world that looks friendly and inviting full of stimulating eustress or someone else may see danger and be on defence, producing stress chemicals in the body and highly increased muscle tension.
The defence body state increases the chances of spinal distorting subluxations as “fight or flight high tension,” many times producing strong unilateral spasms in the spine that lead to weeks, months or years of negative spinal patterns. Specific chiropractic adjustment(s) can potentially ease these negative spinal patterns and hopefully reduce or halt medication.
If you feel that heightened tension pattern in your spine consider a chiropractic spinal examination.
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