Welcome to the New York Chiropractic Opioid Crisis home page. New York Chiropractors have been providing essential wellness care to New Yorkers for over a hundred years. Our members offer safe, drug free solutions to resolve many forms of stress. The value of our services in the opioid crisis is just now being discovered by many, and this page will serve to provide both the public and professionals key information to preventing opioid exposure and how to collaborate care for those who have been exposed and may be dealing with addiction.

Patients seek out chiropractors for our tremendous track record (www.f4cp.com/f4cp_opioid_white_paper.pdf, https://www.jmptonline.org/article/S0161-4754(07)00076-0/abstract) helping recover some of the most common forms of stress with non-invasive care. Even in obvious cases involving spine injury, patients are not always referred for chiropractic care. Equally misunderstood is the importance the spine plays in a balanced nervous system, a key factor in fighting addictive pattens of behavior. 

To combat the crisis council has launched a campaign led by our Opioid task force:

A crucial point that drives our movement is the realization that the recovery community is looking for chiropractic solutions. As a fragmented field, recovery efforts vary greatly from one community to another. Read more about our campaign to improve access to chiropractic care and help lead our collective recovery from opioid addiction.  

Changing Policy

Watch Dr. Joe Baudille & Dr. John Lamonica speak in front of the NYS Senate on Opioid Addiction and Prevention.

https://nycouncil.com/Public/NYS-Senate-Public-Hearing-on-Opioids-Addiction-and-Prevention.aspx

Senator David Carlucci acknowledges Dr Bryan Ludwig’s testimony at the public hearing of the Joint Senate Task Force on Opioids, Addiction & Overdose Prevention

https://nycouncil.com/Public/News/Current_News_Articles/Public/Current_News.aspx?hkey=5d3160df-7009-40a7-98fc-8d4a21443ebd

Educating the Public

Community Connect On Opioids - Albany

Community Connect On Opioids - New York City

Educating Practitioners

Recovery Conference: Bridging the gap between chiropractors and the recovery community - Bryan Ludwig, D.C. & Anish Bajaj, D.C.

Continuing Education for practitioners - Anish Bajaj, D.C.

Opioid Crisis Ambassador Program

Additional Resources

THE FACTS SHOW WE NEED TO PREVENT EXPOSURE TO OPIOIDS TO SAVE LIVES

• A single day's supply of a narcotic painkiller can result in 6 percent of patients being on an opioid a year later... The rate of long-term opioid use increased to about 13 percent for patients who first took the drugs for eight days or more.

 (WebMD: https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/addiction/news/20170316/opioid-dependence-can-start-in-just-a-few-days#1)

• Taking opioid medications for more than a few days increases your risk of long-term use, which increases your risk of addiction. The odds you'll still be on opioids a year after starting a short course increase after only five days on opioids.

(Mayo Clinic: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/prescription-drug-abuse/in-depth/how-opioid-addiction-occurs/art-20360372)

THE SPINE IS A BATTLEFRONT - Opioid exposure can start with back pain, putting chiropractic care first to prevent the risk of addiction

• 25% of the adult population has had back pain in the past 3 months
• 80% of adults will experience back pain at some point in their lifetimes (National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke: https://www.ninds.nih.gov/Disorders/Patient-Caregiver-Education/Fact-Sheets/Low-Back-Pain-Fact-Sheet)
• 32.7% of patients with low back pain were prescribed opioids according to a 2013 study (Pain Journal https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4250559/)
• 21-29% of patients prescribed opioids for chronic pain prescribed pain misuse them
• 8-12% of them develop an opioid use disorder
• 4-6% who misuse prescription opioids transition to heroin (National Institute on Drug Abuse: https://www.drugabuse.gov/drugs-abuse/opioids/opioid-overdose-crisis)
• 36.9% of people were found to have taken an opioid in the past 30 days in a 2018 study
• 18% reported having low back pain (Journal of Pain: https://www.jpain.org/article/S1526-5900(18)30145-7/fulltext)
• Nearly 80% of Americans using heroin reported misusing prescription opioids prior to using heroin (National Institute on Drug Abuse: https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/prescription-opioids)

OUR HEALTHCARE POLICY NEEDS TO CHANGE - Most people addicted to opioids had access to healthcare, but was it the right kind of care?

• Nearly 80% of Americans using heroin reported misusing prescription opioids prior to using heroin (National Institute on Drug Abuse: https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/prescription-opioids)
• Surgery marked the initiation of prolonged opioid therapy (Drug and Alcohol Dependence Journal: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23238486)

CHIROPRACTIC CARE IS PROVEN TO BE MORE EFFECTIVE IN TREATING BACK PAIN THAN DRUGS OR SURGERY

• Reduced odds of surgery were observed for those whose first provider was a chiropractor - 42.7 percent of workers [with back injuries] who first saw a surgeon had surgery, in contrast to only 1.5 percent of those who saw a chiropractor (F4CP/Spine: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23238486)
• Chiropractic care is more effective than other modalities for treating low back and neck pain. When considering effectiveness and cost together, chiropractic care for low back and neck pain is highly cost-effective, represents a good value in comparison to medical physician care and to widely accepted cost-effectiveness thresholds (F4CP https://www.f4cp.com/f4cp_opioid_white_paper.pdf)

SOLUTIONS START AT THE EARLIEST STAGES OF STRESS

• 14% of the world population have had migraine headaches, while 5% experience headaches nearly every day (World Health Organization: https://www.who.int/features/qa/25/en/)

CHIROPRACTIC CARE IS A SUSTAINABLE SOLUTION

• Chiropractic care led to 85% less pharmaceutical cost when compared with conventional medicine IPA performance for the same health maintenance organization product in the same geography and time frame (Clinical Utilization and Cost Outcomes from Integrative Medicine Independent Physician Association: An Additional 3-year Update" Richard L. Sarnat, MD, JMPT. https://www.jmptonline.org/article/S0161-4754(07)00076-0/abstract)