Chiropractic Helps People Avoid Back Surgery

In our Harleysville, PA office, we see plenty of people who are troubled with back pain, and a few of these patients have been informed they might need surgery to recover. Thankfully, Dr. Szilagyi has helped many people get pain relief without the need for any type of operation. The scientific research confirms the results we see in our office. One research study published in the medical journal Spine found that consulting with a chiropractor as your first move in dealing with your back problems may literally keep you out of the operating room.

In this research study, medical researchers from Dartmouth reviewed data from about 1,900 workers from Washington state who first saw either a surgeon or a chiropractic doctor for their back-related issues. They then looked at three years' worth of follow-up medical data to find out whether the patients ended up having back surgery in an effort to correct the issue.

What the authors determined was that about 43% of the people who first consulted with a surgeon for their back issues ended up having a surgical procedure 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 remarkable results. Seeing a chiropractor significantly reduces your odds of having back surgery, plus the chiropractic patients in this scientific study "had lower odds of chronic work disability" and they also had fewer expensive MRI tests.

Let's also take into account this important point: this study was carried out by orthopedic surgeons from Dartmouth College, and printed in the world's most prestigious medical journal on spinal injuries.

Surgery: The Last Resort

Any surgical procedure has risks, but a serious downside linked to spinal surgery is that there is a very high rate of failure. 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. Szilagyi 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 scientific studies have documented the effectiveness of chiropractic for back pain.

If you live in Harleysville, PA and you need relief for your back pain, give our office a call today at (215) 256-4345 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.