Why you might want to delay back surgery?
When you’re in pain, particularly the debilitating, chronic misery of back pain, you’ll try almost anything to get well again. Choosing to delay back surgery in favor of non-invasive treatment options might seem like a step backwards in your treatment journey, but there’s more to treating back pain than surgical intervention. Exploring more conservative options gives you the opportunity to avoid an endless cycle of pain management clinics and prescription painkillers designed to merely mask the pain you feel as a result of real injuries.
Risk/Benefit Analysis: Delay Back Surgery?
As with any other life-changing decision, you’ll want to take some time to do a thorough risk/benefit analysis before deciding whether or not to delay back surgery. You can’t undo an unsuccessful surgery, and there’s a good chance you won’t find the relief you’re seeking on an operating table.
Research drawn from Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation data provides a reasonably clear look at why patients in debilitating pain might choose to forgo or at least delay back surgery: crunching the numbers essentially indicates a 74% failure rate for back surgery. Researcher Dr. Trang Nguyen at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine states simply, “The study provides clear evidence that for many patients, fusion surgeries designed to alleviate pain from degenerating discs don’t work.”
With more than a half million patients in America choosing to undergo surgical treatment for back pain each year, the number of patients for whom surgical intervention doesn’t work based upon these figures is shocking.
Choosing to delay back surgery doesn’t mean choosing to forgo treatment altogether. Pursuing non-invasive treatment from a chiropractor can help you find better results and more effective pain relief than back surgery, all without potentially dangerous prescription painkillers and long surgical recovery times.
How Chiropractic Care Can Help You Avoid or Delay Back Surgery
Undergoing surgery is accompanied by a host of risks, and it may not even provide relief for your pain. It’s also important to note that researchers have discovered that whether or not patients have surgery is often determined by the care providers they see first. Patients who first sought treatment from medical physicians eventually underwent surgery at a rate of 42.7%, while only 1.5% of patients who first sought chiropractic care went on to have a surgical procedure. This means the vast majority of chiropractic patients were able to avoid risky, potentially ineffective and invasive surgical procedures as a result of conservative, drug-free treatment.
Avoiding the debt, grueling recovery process and long-term complications of surgical intervention doesn’t have to mean living in pain for the rest of your life. Working closely with a knowledgeable and experienced chiropractor can help you regain mobility, restore range of motion and reduce pain while addressing inflammation, swelling and learned habits that exacerbate the situation.
Whether you’re just looking for a way to delay back surgery or you’re hoping to avoid it altogether, chiropractic care may provide a solution suited to your individual needs.
