September is Drug-Free Pain Management Awareness Month

September is Drug-Free Pain Management Awareness Month in the State of Iowa!

Recently, Governor Kim Reynolds signed a proclamation establishing September as Drug-Free Pain Management Awareness Month in the State of Iowa! According to the proclamation, the opioid epidemic among Americans is considered a national crisis.

Here are the scary statistics:

• the leading cause of injury death in the US is drug overdose, and a majority of the deaths from drug overdose involved an opioid
• from 1999 to 2020, more than 263,000 Americans have lost their lives to prescription opioids, increasing the number of opioid drug overdoses by five times
• 187 people lose their life to opioid overdoses per day
• in 2020 alone, 68,630 Americans died from an opioid overdose (74.8% of all drug deaths)
• the total economic burden of prescription opioid misuse in the US is estimated around $78.5 billion per year, including the costs of healthcare, lost productivity, addiction treatment, and criminal justice involvement
• over 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain (an estimated 80% of Americans will experience some form of back pain in their life), and prescription opioids are often recommended to manage this pain

Here are the good statistics:

• doctors of chiropractic are educated and trained to effectively address spinal and neuromusculoskeletal pain management with non-surgical and non-drug approaches
• numerous published studies, including The Lancet (March 2018), document spinal manipulation as effective for management of back pain
• the Bulletin of the World Health Organization (WHO) published recommendations to manage back pain initially with non-pharmaceutical approaches, such as spinal manipulations (chiropractic adjustments), while avoiding opioids, spinal injections, and surgery

In conclusion, give us a call first! Trying a non-surgical and non-prescription drug approach to pain management may not only resolve the issue, it can truly save a life.