Chiropractic Therapy Is a Natural Alternative to Back Surgery

Chiropractic vs Back Surgery in Depew

In our Depew practice, we see a lot of patients who are dealing with back pain, and a few of these folks have been told they might need surgery to recover. Fortunately, Dr. Palmer has helped many people get relief without the need for any type of surgical procedure. The science agrees with the success we see in our office. One study published in the 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 research study, medical researchers 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 used three years' worth of follow-up medical information to find out whether the patients wound up having back surgery in an effort to correct the problem.

What the authors found was that 42.7% of the individuals 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 impressive results. 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 take note this important point: this study was performed by orthopedic surgeons from Dartmouth College, and printed in the world's most influential medical journal on spinal injury.

Surgery: The Last Resort

Any surgical procedure has risks, but a serious downside associated with spine surgery is that there's a very high failure rate. 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. Palmer is convinced 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 research studies have demonstrated the efficacy of chiropractic for back pain.

If you live in Depew and you need relief for your back pain, give our practice a call today at (716) 668-2225 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.