When you suffer from chronic back pain, you may feel like you are unable to find any relief. After all, your back and spine are involved in everything you do. Whether you are standing, sitting, or lying down, your spine will feel pressure and is used to maintain the structural integrity of your body. Chronic back pain, therefore can hinder and control your life. However, you can find the relief and comfort you need through collaborative care. Collaborative care combines conventional medical interventions with alternative medical practices to foster the best possible results for you and your back pain. All you need to do is know the collaborative treatments available to you, and get started.

Prescription Pain Medications

One of the most common conventional medical treatments for chronic back pain is the use of prescription medication for pain management. This can be in the form of pills that you take at home which are generally NSAIDs (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agents), muscle relaxants, or even anti-depressants. 

Your physician may also recommend injections to help maintain your pain. These injections are usually anti-inflammatory corticosteroids. They are injected directly into the joints, muscles, or ligaments that cause chronic back pain providing temporary relief. The effects are not permanent, however. This means these injections will become a part of your routine care.

Surgery

In some cases, a physician will recommend surgery to relieve your chronic back pain. For instance, a skilled surgeon can actually implant a device that sends electro-therapeutic pulses through the spine to relieve pain.

If any tumors or other malformations of the spine are causing your chronic back pain, your doctor may attempt to surgically remove or correct the problem as well. These surgeries can be quite extensive and take a great deal of recovery. 

Chiropractic Care

Conventional medicine and chiropractic care can easily be used collaboratively to effectively treat your chronic back pain. Chiropractic care stems from the theory that pain and maladies throughout the body are caused by a misaligned spine. 

When the spine is out of alignment, the nervous system is impeded, which can cause a great deal of pain and discomfort. Thus, a chiropractor will perform spinal manipulations to push your spine back into alignment relieving pressure on the nervous system.

Acupuncture

Acupuncture is another alternative medicine practice that you can use in collaboration with conventional medical treatments. It involves the insertion of tiny needles into specific points throughout the body to help relieve blockages and imbalances in the flow of energy throughout the body. 

These needles are not inserted directly into ligaments like pain medication injections, but instead are far more shallow and are inserted throughout the body. Acupuncture assumes a connection between all body systems, and as such the energy points for chronic back pain are located all throughout your body including the face, abdomen and back.

As you can see, there are several conventional and alternative medicine treatment options available for chronic back pain. By combining these treatments, you will exponentially increase your chances of relieving your pain and getting back to living your life as you would like.