Chiropractic Therapy Better for Sciatica After Failed Surgery

In our Arlington office, we treat a number of men and women with sciatica pain. Luckily, Jefferson Spine & Injury Center is able to help a lot of them overcome this problem and lead a pain-free life. But what happens when you’ve already tried back surgery in an effort to heal your sciatica and it failed? Can chiropractic still help then? The answer is yes and the reason why first requires understanding unsuccessful back surgery syndrome.

Failed Back Surgery Syndrome

Failed back surgery syndrome, also called post-laminectomy syndrome, happens when you’ve had back surgery yet still find yourself in a considerable amount of constant problems in your back or leg area. This can be tremendously frustrating from a patient’s perspective, especially when you go into the surgical procedure hoping that it lessens your pain levels, yet it seems to have no effect on them whatsoever or, if it does, it is only short term.

Causes of failed back surgery syndrome include inability to actually fix the problem due to your physical anatomy, failure of the bones to fuse, recurrent spinal herniation, excessive scar tissue, and more. Sadly, the only thing that back surgery can do is relieve the pressure on a pinched nerve and steady problematic joints. This means that a large number of issues cannot necessarily be corrected by a surgical procedure, thus possibly giving you false hope of better results.

Additionally, the top suggested reason that many back surgeries fail is because the cause of the problem, the lesion that exists, is not the area the surgeon focuses on. This results in not correcting the issue, thereby also not relieving the discomfort.

An article published in Neurosurgery Clinics of North America confirms the inadequate function of back surgery, further saying that “reparative surgery has real, but limited use.” The author also states that other forms of rehabilitation should be tried first. One of the remedies that have proven to be effective at helping sciatica is chiropractic care, and it can even help after back surgery fails, as a couple of studies show.

Research Confirming Chiropractic Care Helps after Failed Back Surgery

The Journal of Chiropractic Medicine posted a study involving a 24 year old male who had experienced back surgery only to continue to experience discomfort due to compacted nerves in his spine, formation of scar tissue near the nerve’s root, and recurrent disc herniation. However, after engaging in chiropractic therapy which included spinal manipulation and exercises to help boost rehabilitation, the individual had improvement in both his symptoms and level of functioning.

Another piece of research printed in the Journal of Chiropractic Medicine found similar results. In this study, three participants who had previously endured surgery to fuse their spine due to disc herniation had the discomfort and disability return to pre-surgical levels.

All three of the patients reported clinical improvements after engaging in just three consecutive daily chiropractic sessions while under anesthesia and the positive effects remained after completing eight weeks of physiotherapy and rehabilitation, in addition to one year post-treatment. This shows that chiropractic treatment gives both short and long term effects, even when back surgery has previously failed.

To discover how chiropractic care can help you, even if you’ve had back surgery and it didn’t work, contact Jefferson Spine & Injury Center today at (703) 933-9000. We’ll do our best to help you get and remain back pain free.

References

Failed back surgery syndrome (FBSS): What it is and how to avoid pain after surgery. Spine-health. Retrieved from http://www.spine-health.com/treatment/back-surgery/failed-back-surgery-syndrome-fbss-what-it-and-how-avoid-pain-after-surgery Long, DM. (1991, October). Failed back surgery syndrome. Neurosurgery Clinics of North America, 2(4), 899-919. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1840393 Morningstar, M and Strauchman, M. (2012, March). Manipulation under anesthesia for patients with failed back surgery: retrospective report of 3 cases with 1-year follow-up. Journal of Chiropractic Medicine, 11(1), 30-35, doi: 10.1016/ j.jcm.2001.08.006 Welk, AB et al. (2012, December). Conservative management of recurrent lumbar disk herniation with epidural fibrosis: a case report. Journal of Chiropractic Medicine, 11(4), 249-253, doi: 10.1016/j.jcm.2012.10.002