Back Surgeries in the South

How dangerous is a spinal surgery?

According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ),  which is part of the Federal Government that tracks medical statistics, Southerners are 45% more likely to have a spinal surgery than people in the Northeast and West regions of the United States. You also have a 1 in 500 chance of death. It will cost $80,998 on average to have the surgery. In 2010, the US spent $15.5 Billion on spinal surgeries.  http://www.ahrq.gov/

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)

Spinal Surgery
Region Total number of discharges Charges, $ (mean) In-hospital deaths
Northeast 66,437 (15.36%) 73,423 172 (0.26%)
Midwest 92,369 (21.35%) 80,561 197 (0.21%)
South 189,709 (43.86%) 80,998 370 (0.20%)
West 84,030 (19.43%) 121,400 177 (0.21%)
Weighted national estimates from HCUP Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS), 2009, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), based on data collected by individual States and provided to AHRQ by the States. Total number of weighted discharges in the U.S. based on HCUP NIS = 39,434,956. Statistics based on estimates with a relative standard error (standard error / weighted estimate) greater than 0.30 or with standard error = 0 in the nationwide statistics (NIS, NEDS, and KID) are not reliable. These statistics are suppressed and are designated with an asterisk (*). The estimates of standard errors in HCUPnet were calculated using SUDAAN software. These estimates may differ slightly if other software packages are used to calculate variances.

60% of Low Back Surgeries could be avoided

with Chiropractic Care

Medical Researchers have said:  Sixty percent of patients, who had failed other medical management, benefited from spinal manipulation to the same degree as if they had undergone surgical intervention. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21036279 “Sciatica is a serious spinal condition that causes pain, numbness, or weakness in one or both legs. Many times symptoms become debilitating and without further help, surgery is prescribed to alleviate discomfort. But surgery is not without financial and physical drawbacks.”  The study also looked at the costs: for every $1.00 spent with a chiropractic provider, it saved $22.90 in medical care.

If you’re looking for a less invasive approach to your healthcare, at Palmer Chiropractic we focus on natural chiropractic care. Chiropractors adjust the spine and vertebra to relieve nerve interference that restricts the expression of life. Serving Richmond Hill, Savannah, Midway, & Georgetown.

Prescription Drug Related Deaths On The Rise

When I was a teen in the mid 80’s, M.A.D.D. (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) came onto the seen when deaths related to drinking and driving were around 26,173 per year.

Prescription drugs taken as prescribed in hospitals are the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S and Canada, after cancer, heart disease and strokes. They cause about 10,000 deaths a year in Canada and about 106,000 deaths a year and over two million serious injuries in the U.S. (Source: Lazarou et al JAMA Vol. 279 No. 15 pp.1200-1205 Incidence of Adverse Drug Reactions in Hospitalized Patients) http://theconference.ca/facts-on-prescription-drug-deaths-and-the-drug-industry  When I hear these statistics it makes me wonder, “where’s Mothers Against Drug Deaths and a fanfare of publicity and legislation to curb the  unnecessary deaths due to medical errors?”

(2000-2010 – death and serious patient outcomes from FDA approved drugs) “These data describe the outcome of the patient as defined in U.S. reporting regulations (21 CFR 310.305, 314.80, 314.98, 600.80) and Forms FDA 3500 and 3500A (the MedWatch forms). Serious means that one or more of the following outcomes were documented in the report: death, hospitalization, life-threatening, disability, congenital anomaly and/or other serious outcome. Documenting one or more of these outcomes in a report does not necessarily mean that the suspect product(s) named in the report was the cause of these outcomes.” – http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Causes_of_Death

Editor’s Note: These data show “deaths” totaling 452,780 and “serious outcomes” equaling 2,816,297 occurred during the eleven years from 2000 to 2010 as tabulated from the FDA’s Adverse Event Reporting System for prescription drugs.

Comparing the five years (2001-2005) with the five years (2006-2010) finds that the number of deaths grew by +66.7% for the second time frame as compared to first. For the same comparative spans, serious patient outcomes leaped by almost three quarters (+77.5%).

How many people die of prescription drug related deaths each year?

How_many_people_die_of_prescription_drug_related_deaths_each_year – 783,936 people in the United States die every year from conventional medicine mistakes.

(2003 medical report Death by Medicine, by Drs. Gary Null, Carolyn Dean, Martin Feldman, Debora Rasio and Dorothy Smith)

Very little is spent to alert the people of the US about the hazards of prescription medication. By 2014, the global market for pharmaceuticals is expected to reach $1.1 trillion.  US Pharmaceutical Launches: Marketing Spend and Structure reveals that the average blockbuster brand in the U.S. allots 49% of its budget to fulfill advertising needs.

That’s BILLIONS in dollars to spend in marketing and LOBBYING for tweaking the system to maximize profits for Big Pharma’s employees and shareholders at the expense of 83,000 lives a year.

  • Direct advertising to doctors: Big Pharma spends more than $20 billion a year promoting their products to American physicians.
  • The distribution of free drug samples: the United States has 81,000 pharmaceutical representatives or 1 for every 7.9 physicians.
  • And the sponsorship of symposiums and medical conventions by the drug companies: drug and medical-device makers spend $2 billion every year for more than 300,000 medical seminars and “training opportunities”, often in sun-splashed, exotic locations.

Newton’s Law – For every action there is an equal and opposite reactionThis applies to chemistry as much as physics.

For natural healthcare that has not been influenced by Big Pharma, Palmer Chiropractic is located at 11400 Ford Ave, Richmond Hill, GA 31324. You can schedule an appointment or free consultation by calling  912-756-3433.

Richmond Hill Chiropractor is focused on natural chiropractic care. Chiropractors adjust the spine and vertebra to relieve nerve interference that restricts life. Serving Savannah, Midway, & Georgetown

Is water important to my chiropractic care?

Is water important to my chiropractic care? Water comprises roughly 70% of your body and nearly 85% of your brain. Not drinking enough water leads to decreased mental and physical function. Early signs of the lack of water are headiness, dizziness, irritability and headaches. The connective tissues in your spine are directly affected by how much water you drink. By reducing your water intake  below an acceptable level you risk losing your ligament’s flexibility and strength. Weakening  the tissues ability to hold the adjustment to your spine by dehydration affects how long the vertebra will stay in place and that causes you to return to our office more frequently. So yes, proper hydration is directly proportional to how quickly you may respond to chiropractic care.

Proper Hydration / Drinking Water

What is the optimum amount of water I should drink? To have healthy connective tissue in your spine you should drink Z number of ounces of water (Z= .5 x your body weight in pounds). So a 150 pound person should be drinking 75 ounces of water per day. Sweat Tea, Tea, and Soda Pop dehydrates your body and is not considered in the measurement at all and may cause you to increase the ounces of pure water needed to hydrate the body. Now that you have the basic rules (100% pure water) for hydration, take your body weight and divide it by two and that’s the amount of water in ounces you should consume daily.

Types of Water

There are different types of water? Yes, man has created many types of water. According to the EPA, these are the standard areas of contamination to our drinking water in the US:

  • Microorganisms
  • Disinfectants
  • Disinfection Byproducts
  • Inorganic Chemicals
  • Organic Chemicals
  • Radionuclides

These are the reasons that you should go to your local big box hardware warehouse and purchase a reverse osmosis system to reduce 99.5% of the pollutants that are coming out of your well and “city water” sources. Yes, there are different types of water…

1. Unfiltered water flows in from the source 
2. Source water contains various contaminants to be removed
3. Pressure is applied to force the source water through the RO membrane.  This process separates pure water molecules from impurities, producing water that is clean, fresh and “pure”.
4. Semi-permeable RO membrane with millions of microscopic holes 
5. Clean/filtered water fit for drinking
6. Contaminants concentrate water flows out

So now that you have a better understanding of how water can affect your chiropractic care, don’t panic, just make slow changes in your habits, make them long lasting, and this should assist  your chiropractor with your care.

Water content alters viscoelastic behaviour of the normal adolescent rabbit medial collateral ligament. – Study – http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1639827

Dr. Trace Palmer – Chiropractor

Yours in Health,

Palmer Chiropractic

11400 Ford Ave

Richmond Hill, Ga  31324

912-756-3433

http://www.palmerchiroga.com