Avoiding the Surgeon's Knife with Chiropractic Therapy

Chiropractic vs Back Surgery in Brooklyn Heights

In our Brooklyn Heights office, we see a lot of people who are troubled with back pain, and some of these patients have been told they might need surgery to recover. Fortunately, Dr. Jonathan A. Spitz, DC has helped many people get pain relief without the need for any type of operation. The scientific literature confirms the results we see in our practice. One medical study published in the journal Spine found that seeing a chiropractor as your first step in dealing with your back pain may actually keep you off of the operating table.

In this study, medical professionals from Dartmouth analyzed statistics from 1,885 workers from Washington state who first saw either an orthopedic surgeon or a chiropractor for their back-related issues. They then examined three years' worth of follow-up medical information to determine whether the subjects ended up having back surgery in an effort to correct the issue.

What the authors found was that about 43% of the patients who first consulted with a surgeon for their back problems ended up in surgery 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 results. Seeing a chiropractor significantly 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 consider this important point: this study was performed by orthopedic surgeons from Dartmouth College, and printed in the world's most prestigious medical journal on spinal injury.

Why You Should Avoid Surgery

Any surgery has risks, but a major problem linked to spinal surgery is that there is 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. Jonathan A. Spitz, DC believes that surgery should be the absolute last resort for treating back pain. Chiropractic works to restore your spine to its normal function--without the need of high-risk surgery or drugs--and many research studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of chiropractic for back pain.

If you live in Brooklyn Heights and you need relief for your back pain, give our office a call today at (718) 237-5117 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.