Chronic Disc

CF 087: Chiropractic in Active Duty Military, Early Care in Whiplash, Chronic Discs & The Sinuvertebral Nerve

Today we’re going to talk about Chiropractic care in Active Duty Military folks, we’ll talk about Early Care in Whiplash victims, and we’ll talk about Chronic Discs & The Sinuvertebral Nerve. What’s the what what on that?

But first, here’s that smooth like chocolate mousse bumper music

And away we go..… Welcome to the podcast today, I’m Dr. Jeff Williams and I’m your host for the Chiropractic Forward podcast.  

You have back flipped into Episode #87. Kind of like the kid at the town swimming pool when you were in school. I could never do that. Pissed me off too. Of course, I never cracked my noggin on the bottom of the pool either so there’s that I suppose. 

We have some pretty cool stuff to talk about this week but, before we get started, let’s talk about GoChiroTV for your lobby. GoChiroTV is a patient education system for your office that will eliminate the need for running cable TV or the same DVDs over and over again in your waiting room. The bite-sized videos are specifically made to inform your patients about the importance of chiropractic and healthy living. To encourage referrals and to present the benefits of all of the different products and services you offer.

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Listeners of the Chiropractic Forward Podcast can use the promo code CFP19 at checkout to get 15% off all subscriptions. That’s CFP19, which also comes with a 45-day free trial to see if it’s right for your practice. Your discounted rate will be locked in for as long as you have a subscription and you can’t hardly beat that deal. 

Go visit GoChiroMedia.com to check out the demo reels and get started on your free trial. Take your practice to the next level with GoChiroTV. Introduction

As regular listeners already know, I’m going through the Diplomate of the Academy of Chiropractic Orthopedists and I really don’t have much to share on that end of things. I got past Part I and am studying for Part II which is coming up in November. Overall, it’s been enjoyable. I do a lot of extra continuing education anyway so, might as well get some letters after my name for my effort don’t you think? You know I’ll keep you updated as I go. 

Here and there, when the spirit hits me, I’ll post some interesting stats from the DACO coursework on our Chiropractic Forward facebook page or in the Chiropractic Forward private group so you can be looking in there for that. 

Item #1

We’re going to start with this one. It’s called, “Chiropractic services in the active duty military setting: a scoping review” written by Mior, Sutton, and To, et. al(Mior S 2019). It was published in BMC Chiropractic and Manual Therapies in July 2019. Hot stuff….serving it up fresh folks…

They start by pointing out the obvious and that’s that musculoskeletal injuries are really a big deal to military folks. Hell yeah they are. I’ve had patients that have fallen from helicopters before. That doesn’t typically happen in the civilian population, now does it?

In some countries, recently America was added to the list, chiropractic care is being used more and more to manage these injuries. Which brings to mind….y’all….the VA just sent me a WWII veteran today!! Just this morning. He was in France and Germany from 1944 through the end of the war in 1945. Made my entire month, y’all. Seriously. How fascinating. Imagine the things he’s seen. 

I told him that, when I hear people bitching about Obama or Trump or politics or anything else really….I always think about their generation and that time and wonder what they were thinking about the world. Rationing supplies, sons, brothers, sisters, fathers, and mothers scattered from one end of the globe to the other. What did they think?

You know what he told me? He said, “We didn’t think the world was coming to an end. We just thought one thing and that was putting an end to it and we had to put an end to Germany to do that. That was all we were thinking.”

Pretty interesting. I get to spend time with this dude for several weeks. I’ll report back with any super awesome nuggets he chooses to pass on to me. 

Anyway, sorry for the sidebar there, back to the paper at hand. 

How They Did It

• They used systematic reviews of relevant databases including military collections and hand searches were conducted from inception up to October 22,2018. 
• They included peer-reviewed English literature with qualitative and quantitative designs, describing chiropractic practice and services delivered to active duty military worldwide. The data was put into evidence table and sorted by study type. 

Geez….sentences like that make me truly happy I am personally not a researcher myself. How boring. Lol. But thank God some are bent that way and like it. 

Now, What They Found

• 497 articles were screened and they whittled that down to only 20 that fit the criteria. 
• Back pain with and without radiculopathy accounted for most complaints. 
• They identified two recent randomized trials that reported improved pain, disability, and satisfaction when adding chiropractic care to usual medical care compared to usual medical care alone in management of low back pain….I believe Dr. Christine Goertz, one of our previous guests was involved in at least one of those papers. 

Wrap It Up

“Two recent RCTs provide evidence of comparative effectiveness of adding chiropractic care to usual medical care. Despite the reported use of chiropractic services in Australia, Canada, and the US, there is little available published evidence related to the nature, use, and outcomes of chiropractic care in active duty military. Our review suggests the need for further qualitative, descriptive, and clinical trial data worldwide to inform the role and value of chiropractic services in active duty military globally.”

So basically they did a lot of work to say, “Yeah, we’re not sure. We need more research.” Lol. Isn’t that the way it usually goes though?

I’m going to go ahead a anecdote the crap out of you here. As I mentioned before, we see a good number of veterans that the VA sends over. Every single one of them have been in the middle of chronic pain syndrome. I have had more than one of them tell me that they are going to kill themselves if they cannot get something done about their pain. 

The VA is stopping all opioids, as they most certainly should. Veterans don’t like this. The opioids were their safety nets and whether they really helped or not, the vets thought they helped and just like a placebo, that may have been enough to make a difference for them. 

So now it’s other things. They come in still on gabapentin and things of that nature but no more opioids and they’re pissed. But here’s the deal, when you start asking about their service, what years they were in, and where they were sent, you start to see the walls break down a bit. 

That’s when you demonstrate good solid knowledge through your exam and communication. By the time to finish up, if you do it right, you have a new patient and a new friend who’s excited to see where this thing might go. 

Almost all of them have responded positively. Yes, absolutely there are some here or there that don’t get the results we want for them but, without a doubt, the vast majority of them start sleeping better (which is one of the most common complaints), they stop hurting at the levels they previously experienced, and they start becoming more active. They come in laughing and they look forward to being here. 

Researchers can have all of the questions in the world and I’m glad they do and I’m glad they’re trying to answer them but, for me, I don’t have to know exactly how it works physiologically. I just practice good solid evidence-based chiropractic and I have the joy of sitting back and watching what happens. It truly is astounding y’all. 

We’re going to talk about whiplash and early intervention. Good idea or bad idea? It may not be what you think it is. 

First, since we mentioned evidence-based chiropractic, 

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Alright, Item #2

This one is called, “Early aggressive care and delayed recovery from whiplash: isolated finding or reproducible result?” written by Cote, Hogg-Johnson, Cassidy, et. al. and published in Arthritis & Rheumatology in 2007(Cote P 2007). Oldie but a goodie here if you’re doing personal injury work. 

Why They Did It

The stated goal here is to test the reproducibility of the finding that early intensive care for whiplash injuries is associated with delayed recovery. 

How They Did It

• Data from a cohort study of 1,693 adults suffering whiplash was looked at. 
• They picked apart 8 different patterns of care between GPs, chiropractors, and specialists
• And they used Cox models to estimate the association between patterns of care and time to recovery

What They Found

“The observation that intensive health care utilization early after a whiplash injury is associated with slower recovery was reproduced in an independent cohort of patients. The results add to the body of evidence suggesting that early aggressive treatment of whiplash injuries does not promote faster recovery. In particular, the combination of chiropractic and general practitioner care significantly reduces the rate of recovery.”

Well what the hell do we do with that information exactly? What exactly is meant by the term ‘early aggressive’? What is meant by chiropractic care? Does that just mean spinal manipulative therapy? Or does that mean spinal manipulative therapy, exercise/rehab, therapy, and all the good things we use to make people better?

My answer to you is “Hell if I know.” The abstract doesn’t give that information. But what I can tell you is, the more we are able to utilize motion and movement, the faster they heal up. You take that to the bank from your ole pal Uncle Jeffro. 

Item #3

Look, when I read the title of this next one, I don’t want your eyes glossing over and you losing your ability to stay awake. I damn sure don’t want you turning off the podcast or fast forwarding. Just hold on a damn second. 

This one is called “A comprehensive review of the sinuvertebral nerve with clinical applications.” It was written by Brian Shayota, T.L. Wong, and Donald Fru, et. al. and published in Anatomy & Cell Biology in 2019(Shayota B 2019). Hot cakes, servin em fresh. 

When it comes to disc pain, the sinuvertebral nerve is a hot topic amongst anatomists. Bet you didn’t know that, right? Why would that be? Well, they say, “Knowledge of the nerve has been used to design a variety of diagnostic and treatment procedures for chronic discogenic pain. This paper reviews the anatomy and clinical aspects of the sinuvertebral nerve.”

The sinuvertebral nerve, associated with the discogenic type (pain from an injured vertebral disc), accounts for approximately 26%–39% of patients with low back pain. 

Well that’s important now isn’t it?

“Although the sinuvertebral nerve fibers are said to terminate in the outer anulus, it is now widely accepted that this end point is not permanent. Studies of healthy patients normally show neural penetration of the anulus at about 3 mm.” And the plot thickens!!

They continue, “However, degenerative discs have shown penetration of nerve fibers as far as the inner one third in one study [38], and into the nucleus pulposus in another.”

“Discogenic pain is not limited to the lower back. Overactivation of the C1–C3 sinuvertebral nerves is now considered the cause of most cervicogenic headaches.”

Wrap It Up

“Recent studies have shown that the sinuvertebral nerve can be traced as far as the outer three layers of the lamella in healthy patients, but can go as far as the nucleus pulposus in degenerative discs. The nerve has also been implicated in discogenic pain. Yet only recently has its role been extensively studied, providing opportunities for the development of newer diagnostic and treatment techniques to combat the debilitating consequences of its pathology. Provocative discography is still the gold standard for diagnosing discogenic pain. While these procedures have proved advantageous in discogenic pain management, much more work needs to be done to improve their accuracy and efficacy. The sinuvertebral nerve has also been linked to cervicogenic headaches, but more research is needed to clarify its involvement in this condition.

Pretty cool stuff right there folks!!

Store

Part of making your life easier is having the right patient education tools in your office. Tools that educate based on solid, researched information. We offer you that. It’s done for you. We are taking pre-orders right now for our brand new, evidence-based office brochures available at chiropracticforward.com. Just click the STORE link at the top right of the home page and you’ll be off and running. Just shoot me an email at dr.williams@chiropracticforward.com if something is out of sorts or isn’t working correctly. 

If you’re like me, you get tired of answering the same old questions. Well, these brochures make great ways of educating while saving yourself time and breath. They’re also great for putting in take-home folders. 

Go check them out at chiropracticforward.com under the store link. While you’re there, sign up for the newsletter won’t you? We won’t spam you. Just one email per week to remind you when the new episode comes out. That’s it. 

The Message

I want you to know with absolute certainty that when Chiropractic is at its best, you can’t beat the risk vs reward ratio because spinal pain is primarily a movement-related pain and typically responds better to movement-related treatment instead of chemical treatments like pills and shots.

When compared to the traditional medical model, research and clinical experience show that many patients get good or excellent results through chiropractic for headaches, neck pain, back pain, joint pain, to name just a few.

Chiropractic care is safe and cost-effective. It can decrease instances of surgery & disability. Chiropractors normally do this through conservative, non-surgical means with minimal time requirements or hassle to the patient. 

And, if the patient develops a “preventative” mindset going forward from initial recovery, chiropractors can likely keep it that way while raising the general, overall level of health of the patient!

Key Point:

Patients should have the guarantee of having the best treatment offering the least harm.

That’s Chiropractic!

Contact

Send us an email at dr dot williams at chiropracticforward.com and let us know what you think of our show or tell us your suggestions for future episodes. Feedback and constructive criticism is a blessing and so are subscribes and excellent reviews on iTunes and other podcast services. Y’all know how this works by now so help if you don’t mind taking a few seconds to do so.

Help us get to the top of podcasts in our industry. That’s how we get the message out. 

Connect

We can’t wait to connect with you again next week. From the Chiropractic Forward Podcast flight deck, this is Dr. Jeff Williams saying upward, onward, and forward. 

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About the Author & Host

Dr. Jeff Williams – Chiropractor in Amarillo, TX, Chiropractic Advocate, Author, Entrepreneur, Educator, Businessman, Marketer, and Healthcare Blogger & Vlogger

Bibliography

Cote P, H.-J. S., Cassidy JD, (2007). “Early aggressive care and delayed recovery from whiplash: isolated finding or reproducible result?” Arthritis Rheum 57(5): 861-868.

Mior S, S. D., To D, (2019). “Chiropractic services in the active duty military setting: a scoping review.” BMC Chiro Man Ther 27(45).

Shayota B, W. T., Fru D, (2019). “A comprehensive review of the sinuvertebral nerve with clinical applications.” Anat Cell Biol 52(2): 128-133.