Chiropractic Treatment Helps People Avoid Back Surgery

In our Charlotte, NC chiropractic clinic, we see plenty of people who are struggling with back pain, and some of these folks have been told they might need surgery to recover. Thankfully, ChiroWerx has helped many people get relief without the need for any type of surgical procedure. The scientific research confirms the results we see in our office. One study published in the medical journal Spine found that seeing a chiropractor as your first step in dealing with your back issues may actually keep you off of the operating table.

In this report, medical experts from Dartmouth reviewed statistics from 1,885 workers from Washington state who first saw either a surgeon or a chiropractor for their low back issues. They then examined three years' worth of follow-up medical records to ascertain whether the patients wound up having back surgery in an attempt to correct the issue.

What the researchers determined was that 42.7% of the men and women who first consulted with a surgeon for their back issues ended up having a surgical procedure in that 3-year time frame, whereas only 1.5 percent 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. Visiting a chiropractor dramatically decreases your odds of having 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 keep in mind 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 injuries.

The Problems with Surgery

Any surgical procedure has risks, but a serious problem associated with spine 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 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, ChiroWerx believes that surgery should be the absolute last resort for treating back pain. Chiropractic works to restore your spine to its normal function--without high-risk surgery or drugs--and many studies have demonstrated the usefulness of chiropractic for back pain.

If you live in Charlotte, NC and you need relief for your back pain, give our office a call today at (980) 201-9484 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.