Avoid Back Surgery With Chiropractic

In our Rochester Hills, MI office, we see a large number of people who are dealing with back pain, and some of these folks have been informed they might need surgery to recover. Thankfully, Dr. Ronda Dalton has helped many people get relief without the need for any type of surgery. The science confirms the success we see in our office. One medical 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 out of the operating room.

In this research study, medical professionals from Dartmouth analyzed data from about 1,900 workers from Washington state who first saw either a surgeon or a chiropractor for their back-related issues. They then examined three years' worth of follow-up medical data to ascertain whether the patients ended up having back surgery in an effort to correct the issue.

What the researchers found was that 42.7% of the people who first saw a surgeon for their back problems ended up with surgery in that 3-year time span, 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 impressive results. Seeing a chiropractor considerably 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 printed in the world's most influential medical publication on spinal injury.

The Problems with Surgery

Any surgical procedure 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 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. Ronda Dalton is convinced 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 scientific studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of chiropractic for back pain.

If you live in Rochester Hills, MI and you need care for your back pain, give our office a call today at (248) 977-7039 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.