CF 155: Vegans & Broken Bones, Daily Step Count, Medical Cannabis

 

Today we’re going to talk about new research for vegans and the risk of broken bones, we’ll cover new information pertaining to a patient’s daily step count, and we’ll talk about a study on medical cannabis and it’s effectiveness in treating chronic pain. Good stuff today, folks. 

 

But first, here’s that sweet sweet bumper music

 

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You have found yourself smack dab in the middle of Episode #155

 

Now if you missed last week’s episode , we talked about the shake up with the World Federation of Chiropractic and all of the goings on that went on with that. Make sure you don’t miss that info. Keep up with the class. 

 

On the personal end of things…..

As of the typing of this, it is the Monday following Thanksgiving. I hope you all had a good one. I have a nice back patio, outdoor kitchen area with a fireplace and quite a bit of room to move around. 

I have my mom and my stepdad over as well as my brother and his wife. With the four of my regular crew, that made 8 of us. Nobody went inside. We all just gathered outside on the patio and ate outside. It was great. It was safe. And we still got to have Thanksgiving. 

We had two separate tables. One for my crew and one for the other four. We had my crew at one table because I work with 140 or so appointments per week, my son goes to a high infection rate college, and my daughter goes to junior high with over 1,000 kids every day. So, my crew was the wildcard in that crowd. So we sat separated just a bit to be sure we were protecting the others from any asymptomatic hoo ha. 

It seemed to work very well. Again, I hope you all did well and stayed safe and happy and healthy. It was different for sure, right? Definitely one to remember. No doubt. Think of all of the things we took for granted before this mess. I know many of you have but I haven’t taken a trip or vacation or anything since February when we went to Key Largo. 

I’m used to going on little vacays about once per quarter just to preserve my sanity. I think that’s important. Getting out of the office and getting some sea air or some mountain air in your face. But we haven’t been able to do any of that in the last 9 to 10 months and I’m missing it. I’m a traveler. 

This has really taught us what we do and what we do not have control over. We do not have control over nature from what I can tell. Certainly not this virus. At least not yet we don’t. 

This second spike has been severe where I live. Over 1,000 new cases in one day on the last count, over 750 FEMA staffers here helping our healthcare system keep up with the hospitalized patients. I haven’t seen this week’s numbers yet but we lost 24 residents to COVID in just two days last week. 24 deaths in two days. That was unheard of just a couple of months ago. I have lost a couple of patients to it. Fortunately, I haven’t lost any friends as of yet. I hope your friends are all staying safe and weathering the storm the same. 

PRactice is just there. Nothing special going on right now. We are running a radio spot for this holiday season but I’m not sure how smart that is. Luckily, they gave us a killer deal on the run so we couldn’t resist. They made us a deal we couldn’t refuse. I’m not sure all of the ads in the world will get everyone out of the mental and financial funk any time in the next several months. 

But I’ll report back. If it works, I’ll share what we did so you can do the same. On the other hand, if you’re doing something that is working for your clinic and getting people back in the numbers you want to see, send me an email at [email protected] and let us know so we can let others know and help everyone out with getting their numbers back closer to normal. 

 

Item #1

Let’s start with one called “Medical Cannabis for the Management of Pain and Quality of Life in Chronic Pain Patients: A Prospective Observational Study” by Safakish, et. al. (Safakish R 2020) published in Pain Medicine in November of 2020. And it sizzles and steams as it sits.  

 

Why They Did It

To evaluate the short-term and long-term effects of plant-based medical cannabis in a chronic pain population over the course of one year.

 

How They Did It

• 751 chronic pain patients initiating medical cannabis treatment.
• A longitudinal, prospective, 12-month observational study.
• Study participants completed the Brief Pain Inventory and the 12-item Short Form Survey (SF-12), as well as surveys on opioid medication use and adverse events, at baseline and once a month for 12 months.

 

What They Found

• Medical cannabis treatment was associated with improvements in pain severity and interference (P