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How Your Provider Will Manage Your Spinal Pain

Your Allina Medical Clinic health care provider will follow established guidelines for managing (treating) your spinal pain. An Adult Spinal Pain Task Force within Allina Medical Clinic developed these guidelines. They reflect the best practice (the best way) to treat spinal pain known today. Your provider will talk with you about:

• Active management of your spinal pain – you continue to be mobile while your pain is controlled
  Research shows that when people with spinal pain continue to be mobile (be active), they heal much faster than those who are not mobile. This makes sense:
  • People with other situations such as heart surgery or joint replacement exercise as soon as possible. Normally they are active the first or second day after surgery.
  • Body parts that are inactive lose mobility and function rapidly. 
  For most people, continuing their daily routine as much as possible will help their spine heal faster. Fifty percent of spinal pain patients improve in just one week. Your provider may give you some exercises to do at home.  
  
  Active management of your spinal pain has other benefits:
  • It will help keep your current problem from turning into a chronic (long-term) condition.
  • It can help you avoid charges for costly diagnostic tests, treatments and drugs.
  
  Your provider will determine what level of activity will be safe for you by:
  • giving you a physical exam
  • reviewing your medical history and any prior treatments you’ve had for spinal pain. 
  
  
• Passive management of your spinal pain – you receive some kind of treatment
  Your provider may prescribe a specific treatment for relief of acute (short-term) spinal pain. There are several kinds of passive treatments:
  • heat, ultrasound, massage
  • spinal manipulation or adjustment
  • medicines – pills or injections
  • acupressure or acupuncture
  • TENS units, muscle stimulation, traction
  • whirlpool sessions.
  
  It is important for you to know the following about passive treatments:
  • They may relieve your pain or other symptoms you have. There is currently no evidence to show that they will heal or cure your condition.
  • Your provider will hesitate to use passive treatments if you develop chronic spinal pain. You could become very dependent on them. 
  
  
• Surgical management of your spinal pain – laminectomy and fusion procedures
  Only rarely would your provider recommend surgery to treat spinal pain. The guidelines suggest considering surgery in these cases:
  • when a patient’s acute condition requires prompt treatment 
  • when aggressive conservative care fails to bring relief for acute arm or leg pain stemming from a nerve root injury
  • when correctable congenital (born with it) or degenerative conditions threaten physical function.