Chiropractic Treatment Is a Natural Alternative to Back Surgery

In our Nashville chiropractic clinic, we see a large number of people who are struggling with back pain, and some of these people have been advised they might need surgery to recover. Fortunately, Sweeney Chiropractic has helped many people get relief without the need for any type of surgical treatment. The scientific literature agrees with the success we see in our practice. One medical study published in the academic journal Spine found that seeing a chiropractor as your first move in dealing with your back problems may literally keep you out of the operating room.

In this report, medical researchers from Dartmouth reviewed statistics from 1,885 workers from the state of Washington who first saw either a surgeon or a chiropractor for their low back issues. They then looked at three years' worth of follow-up medical records to ascertain whether the patients ended up having back surgery in an effort to treat the issue.

What the authors discovered was that about 43% of the individuals who first saw a surgeon for their back pain ended up in surgery in that 3-year time span, 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 findings. Visiting a chiropractor significantly reduces your odds of having back surgery, plus the chiropractic patients in this study "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 performed by orthopedic surgeons from Dartmouth College, and printed in the world's most prestigious medical publication on spinal injuries.

Why You Should Avoid Surgery

Any surgery has risks, but a serious problem associated with spinal 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 authors of 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, Sweeney Chiropractic 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 scientific studies have confirmed the usefulness of chiropractic for back pain.

If you live in Nashville and you need relief for your back pain, give our office a call today at (615) 331-7040 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.