In our South Buffalo office, we see a lot of people who are troubled with back pain, and a few of these folks have been advised they might need surgery to recover. Thankfully, Dr. John Nowak has helped many people get pain relief without the need for any type of surgery. The science confirms the success we see in our office. One study published in the medical journal Spine found that consulting with a chiropractor as your first move in dealing with your back problems may literally keep you out of the operating room.
In this scientific study, medical professionals from Dartmouth analyzed data from about 1,900 workers from the state of Washington who first saw either a surgeon or a chiropractor for their low back issues. They then looked at three years' worth of follow-up medical records to find out whether the patients ended up having back surgery in an effort to correct the problem.
What the authors found was that about 43% of the patients who first consulted with a surgeon for their back issues ended up having a surgical procedure in that 3-year time span, whereas only 1.5% of those who first consulted with 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 outcomes. Visiting a chiropractor significantly decreases 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 consider this important point: this study was performed by orthopedic surgeons from Dartmouth College, and published in the world's most influential medical journal on spinal injury.
The Problems with Surgery
Any surgery has risks, but a serious problem related to spine surgery is that there's a very high rate of failure. In an important analysis 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 experts in 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, Dr. John Nowak believes that surgery should be the absolute last choice for treating back pain. Chiropractic works to restore your spine to its normal function--without the need of risky surgery or drugs--and many scientific studies have demonstrated the usefulness of chiropractic for back pain.
If you live in South Buffalo and you need care for your back pain, give our practice a call today at (716) 825-4121 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.
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