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Hello, everyone. Dr. Sherry McAllister, president of the Foundation for Chiropractic Progress. Absolutely delighted to be on ChiroSecure Facebook Live with you today. Now, as September has always been, in the last 10 years, Drug-Free Pain Management Awareness Month. This really is about a conversation more than a date on a calendar.
It’s about a million plus people whose lives become actually much smaller because of pain. You see them every single day. It takes away their sleep. It interferes with their work, the movement they’re able to do. It also impacts a lot of the relationships that they have. And the simple activities that give life meaning it actually really does create depression.
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So I’m here to tell you that this month we really wanna focus on those people because when someone’s hurting, they’re not looking for a debate between professions. What they’re really looking for is help. They’re looking for hope. And as in Adjusted Reality, the book, if someone doesn’t have hope the ability to cope becomes that much more difficult.
So we wanna give them opportunity to look for solutions. People deserve to know the evidence that supports the non-pharmacological approach that exists, and you’re that. In every community, chiropractic care can be such an important part in the pain management strategy. Now let’s going back to the CDC’s clinical guidelines.
It actually recommends maximizing appropriate non-opioid and non-pharmacological therapies. It also recognizes spinal manipulation as one of the non-pharmacological options. Now, as chiropractors we call that the adjustment, and that really is a big part of really helping patients in our communities understand that there is a better way.
And, if they’re exhausting their energy, their fatigue, and the medication is only making them worse, they need to hear your voice, and they need to hear it loud, and they need to hear it clear because the research is pointing towards that. In fact, PLOS One in January 2025, let’s just talk about one of those research pieces.
It examined adults with sciatica- Using two matched cohorts of more than 372,000 patients. That’s significant study. Among the patients who initially received chiropractic, they had a 32% relative risk of receiving an opioid prescription lowered. So 32% lower risk. Now, the difference in opioid-related asver- adverse drugs was more striking, so 0.09% in the chiropractic group versus 0.3 in just the usual care group.
So think about what that really means. That’s a 71% lower relative risk. That’s significant. And if people knew those kind of stats, they’d start to recognize that starting with a non-pharm option first is always a better way. These are the retrospective studies that we want people to know about. Now, obviously, it me- it means a lot to a patient to know that there are studies, but also to know that you’re there with them to really help.
There’s another study in Health Science report that I think was also significant, and this was in 2025. It examined nearly 50,000 matched opioid-naive adults with newly diagnosed low back pain, and it… Some of them with or without sciatica. Over the two years, 0.24% of those initially receiving an adjustment, they call it the SMT, were diagnosed with opioid use disorder compared with 1.51% of those initially prescribed ibuprofen.
So that was approximately 80% lower relative risk in those that are getting chiropractic adjustments. Now, that group was also 77% less likely to experience long-term opioid use. 77%. Now, these findings are encouraging, but the authors properly acknowledge that obviously they’re observational research, and it cannot eliminate every possible difference between the groups.
But the next step is more prospective and randomized research needs to be done, but the message is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore, and that’s why I’m on this Facebook Live with you It’s the first door a patient enters may actually influence the care pathway that, that follows, and that’s really the message they need to hear.
If they start with a chiro, they’re gonna f- usually end with a chiro, and they have a much less chance of getting adverse events from drug use, opiod prescriptions. And I think that’s one of the big pieces that I think is a large lesson that major health systems are no longer asking whether non-drug care becomes part of the conversation.
It’s starting to actually improve access to it, and when a patient starts chiropractic, they start to recognize how that lifestyle changes become apparent to them. Remember we started this with they’re not sleeping well, they’re not feeling well, and they’re certainly being difficult with their movements and activities of daily living.
That leads oftentimes as we know through NCMIC’s research in bidirectional comorbidity of having an opioid and low back pain. So that’s part of our process, is being able to recognize that patients have to have these options, and when they do, oftentimes they report great patient satisfaction. We’ve seen patient satisfaction for patients in surveys up to 97%.
The highest pain management percentage among the cul- com- the complementary health approaches is chiropractic, and people need to know that. The public is looking for us, and the question is whether we will be visible, accessible, and prepared when they look. Now, doctors of chiropractic, offering a solution means that they need to understand the language too, and evaluate what it means to get the care that they need when they need it.
So if they can’t sleep, if they’re having difficulties at work, if they’re not able to pick up their child, maybe their confidence level has fallen all the way through because their low back pain has caused them to alter all activities of daily living. Success should not be measured only by a pain scale, and you know that.
It should be measured by how they’re functioning. What’s their mobility? How are they participating in life? Our strongest message is actually an honest one. Chiropractic care provides a conservative supported approach, and th- that means during Drug-Free and Pain Management Awareness Month we need to step up and we need to do three very important things.
First, educate your community. Absolutely no reason to not do it because we have all the resources at the foundation. Log on to your account at F4CP.org. There’ll be the log on in the corner if you’re a member of your state association or you have joined. You log in and you can find our toolkits. You can use our newsletters, our presentations to start recognizing how conservative care can be considered early, not merely after every other approach has failed.
Now, the second thing I’m gonna ask you to do, build some collaborative relationships. Would you be willing to connect with a primary care clinician in your community? Let them know that you’re there to help them, because I know that many doctors will see, many medical doctors will see low back pain, but they won’t really know who and where and why Answer those questions for them.
Take them for coffee, ask them about what are some of the things that they’re having troubles with, and start building these relationships. Maybe you visit a pharmacist in your neighborhood and leave some cards with them. Behavioral health professionals, those that are suffering with depression and anxiety, perhaps you could build a relationship with them, too.
Acupuncturists, yoga therapists, you know it. All these people come around you to support that whole being pain management. It’s not a competition. It’s a coordinated response to the fact that humans are really suffering, and they’re suffering at a pace like we’ve never seen before. Third, make the research understandable.
Patients don’t need lectures, and our youth has said, “As soon as you start to teach, it sounds like you’re preaching,” and that’s not what we want. We want them to understand that the research is actually supporting chiropractic with less opioid exposure and fewer opioid-related harm, that we’re actually supporting their movement and their function.
Now, the Foundation for Chiropractic Progress has created an entire September resource to help practice carry this message into the community. So these include social media materials, our posters, our presentations. We’ve got webinars you can do on your own YouTube channel or place them on your website.
We have patient handouts and templates for requesting local proclamations recognizing Drug-Free Pain Management Awareness Month. You can go to your local town mayor and get these proclamations signed by them. Please use them. Share them with the media in your town. Take the message beyond your adjusting table and really into your community because every person who receives a safe, appropriate conservative care option before an unnecessary opioid exposure, that represents more than a statistic.
That is a person, someone whose parent or spouse or child or colleague, maybe a veteran, a neighbor, or a friend that may get addicted, and that impacts all of us. People are suffering, and they’re needing your help, and I think we’re lifting them up. Once they come in because they’ve had troubles with pain that’s the best part.
Now you’re going to showcase how lifestyle changes will actually make a difference. We have to continue to produce the research, so we’re always asking for more funding and getting grants. We wanna be able to communicate responsibly, and perhaps you walk to your hospital or your ER room and actually share.
Share the evidence. It’s solid. It’s grounded in evidence, compassion, and patient choice. That’s what you came into chiropractic doing. We are not asking patients to choose between relief and safety. We’re doing both. We’re working towards a system in which they can pursue their health, get their function back, and have a better life because of it.
And as Adjusted Reality, the youth, the podcast that Adjusted Reality stands for, is to get them while they’re young so that we can build them all the way through their life. Have you shared a, an Adjusted Reality podcast with them lately, like Chiropractic for Your Brain with Dr. Heidi Haavik?
These are the moments that really count. And as always, as ChiroSecure is fantastic in supporting the Foundation for Chiropractic Progress, allowing me to be with you every Facebook Live once a month, and helping us serve our patients every single day. So I wanna thank them. I wanna be able to s- thank you for you being the doctor in their community to help move people to better function, better reclaim lives, and that pain really does not interrupt their life, but it’s managed appropriately.
Let’s keep doing what we’re doing. We’re offering great solutions. We’re keeping our doors open, and we’re keeping the adjusted reality, not just in optimization and performance, but we’re keeping it in pain management too. It is one single patient. It’s one practice, and it’s one community that we wanna help all over the world.
Now, we’ve got some exciting stuff coming up in October when we get to October Awareness Month is about chiropractic. So let’s keep positive. Let’s get through the hard September months of pain, and then let’s show them what they can gain in October when we get to the Global Chiropractic Awareness Month in October.
And that’s what I wanna leave you with today. It’s positive. It’s strong. It is enthusiastic, and I want you to come along on the journey. If you’ve not yet joined us, it’s f4cp.org/package, and you’ll pick the package that’s right for you. We’re here for you. We’re absolutely with you, and we’re all about chiropractic.
Look forward to seeing you next month as you’ll prepare for October’s Global Chiropractic Awareness Month
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