Want To Avoid Surgery? See A Chiropractor

In our Parma practice, we see plenty of patients who are troubled with back pain, and some of these people have been told they might need surgery to recover. Fortunately, Baker Chiropractic Wellness Center has helped many people get relief without the need for any type of surgical treatment. The scientific research confirms the success we see in our office. One medical study published in the medical journal Spine found that consulting with a chiropractor as your first move in dealing with your back pain may literally keep you off of the operating table.

In this report, medical professionals from Dartmouth analyzed data from 1,885 workers from Washington state who first saw either a surgeon or a chiropractor for their low back issues. They then used three years' worth of follow-up medical records to determine whether the patients ended up having back surgery in an attempt to treat the problem.

What the researchers found was that 42.7% of the people who first saw a surgeon for their back pain ended up having a surgical procedure in that 3-year time frame, whereas only 1.5% of those who first saw a chiropractor had the same fate. The authors wrote:

"Even after controlling for injury severity and other measures, workers with an initial visit for the injury to a surgeon had almost nine times the odds of receiving lumbar spine surgery compared to those seeing primary care providers, whereas workers whose first visit was to a chiropractor had significantly lower odds of surgery."

These are remarkable findings. Seeing a chiropractor significantly reduces your odds of getting back surgery, plus the chiropractic patients in this report "had lower odds of chronic work disability" and they also had fewer expensive MRI tests.

Let's also take note this important detail: this study was performed by orthopedic surgeons from Dartmouth College, and published in the world's most influential medical journal on spinal injury.

Why You Should Avoid Surgery

Any surgery has risks, but a major problem linked to spinal surgery is that there's a very high rate of failure. In an important review in the European Spine Journal, researchers wrote:

"Failed back surgery is a problem that has become sufficiently widespread to even warrant its own special conferences, with recent reviews reporting failure rates ranging from 5 to 50%."

The authors of this same study concluded:

"It is extremely difficult to identify unequivocal predictor factors that can be used to accurately predict the outcome of surgery."

As a chiropractor, Baker Chiropractic Wellness Center believes that surgery should be the absolute last choice for treating back pain. Chiropractic care works to restore your spine to its normal function--without the need of risky surgery or drugs--and many research studies have documented the efficacy of chiropractic for back pain.

If you live in Parma and you need care for your back pain, give our office a call today at (440) 888-6979 for a consultation or an appointment. We'll help get you back on the road to a pain-free life!

Studies

• Keeney BJ, Fulton-Kehoe D, Turner JA, Wickizer TM, Chan KC, Franklin GM. Early predictors of lumbar spine surgery after occupational back injury: results from a prospective study of workers in Washington State. Spine 2013;38(11):953-964.
• Mannion AF, Elfering A. Predictors of surgical outcome and their assessment. European Spine Journal 2006;15(Suppl 1):S93-S108.