In regards to bone spur treatment, most people are familiar with the traditional recommendations: medications, exercises and physical therapy. However, these are far from the only options. Complementary and alternative therapies can play a significant role in bone spur treatment, helping to provide additional pain relief and enhance the results of traditional treatments.

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) for bone spurs

The most common forms of alternative bone spur treatment include:

• Yoga
• Acupuncture
• Massage therapy
• Chiropractic care
• Herbal pain remedies

Adding alternative therapies to your treatment plan

As with traditional therapies, alternative therapies should always be discussed with a medical professional prior to their use. This is because some options — such as select herbal medications — can interfere with the efficacy of traditional therapies. It’s also important to talk about how to integrate these options into a traditional treatment plan, rather than using them as a total replacement for conventional options.

Depending on the therapy, people can experience results very quickly, as when a person notices an immediate improvement in pain following a massage. Other therapies, such as yoga, can provide gradual relief and should be seen as an ongoing commitment rather than one-off solutions.

Even though many people find complementary and alternative therapies to be highly beneficial, these options aren’t designed to treat the bone spurs themselves. The same is true of traditional treatments such as pain relievers and physical therapy. For patients with moderate to severe bone spur symptoms, surgery might be required to address the underlying condition.

At USA Spine Care, we offer outpatient alternatives to traditional surgery. Our minimally invasive surgeries use muscle-sparing techniques and have no lengthy recovery periods. You can contact USA Spine Care today to find out if you are a candidate for our minimally invasive bone spur surgeries.