Want To Avoid Surgery? See A Chiropractor

In our Arlington chiropractic clinic, we see a large number of people who are dealing with back pain, and a few of these folks have been told they might need surgery to recover. Thankfully, Jefferson Spine & Injury Center has helped many people get pain relief without the need for any type of operation. The science agrees with the results we see in our practice. One study published in the academic journal Spine found that seeing a chiropractor as your first step in dealing with your back problems may literally keep you off of the operating table.

In this study, medical experts from Dartmouth analyzed statistics from 1,885 workers from Washington state who first saw either an orthopedic surgeon or a chiropractic doctor for their back pain issues. They then examined three years' worth of follow-up medical information to ascertain whether the patients ended up having back surgery in an effort to correct the problem.

What the authors discovered was that about 43% of the people who first consulted with a surgeon for their back pain ended up in surgery 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 impressive outcomes. Consulting with a chiropractor considerably 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 take into consideration this important point: this study was carried out by orthopedic surgeons from Dartmouth College, and published in the world's most prestigious medical journal on spinal injuries.

The Problems with Surgery

Any surgery has risks, but a major problem linked to spine surgery is that there is a very high failure rate. 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, Jefferson Spine & Injury Center is convinced that surgery should be the absolute last choice for treating back pain. Chiropractic works to restore your spine to its normal function--without high-risk surgery or drugs--and many scientific studies have confirmed the efficacy of chiropractic for back pain.

If you live in Arlington and you need relief for your back pain, give our practice a call today at (703) 933-9000 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.