Thursday, February 5, 2009

Is Back Surgery Your Best Option?

Many patients suffer from back pain of a variety of causes. Frequently, they are encouraged to rush to back surgery in order to eliminate their pain as soon as possible. Unfortunately for many patients, they find out too late that invasive back surgery is not the answer to their prayers.

Despite the progress and improvements in surgical techniques, surgical outcomes have not improved significantly. Back surgery has some of the poorest outcomes among all surgical interventions.
In fact, in a 7 to 20 year follow up study to document the outcomes of disc surgery in the medical journal Spine the conclusion was that “the long term results of standard lumbar discectomy are not very satisfying. More than one-third of patients had unsatisfactory results and more than one quarter complained of significant residual pain.” (Spine. 1999 Nov 15;24(22):2313-7). Another recent survey of back surgery patients revealed that they only have a 53% satisfaction rate following their back surgery. These numbers are not very promising. Orthopedic surgeons have even coined a name for a new condition related to the poor outcomes of back surgery and the residual pain and disability following back surgery - "Failed Back Surgery Syndrome".

So you may be asking yourself, when is back surgery warranted and absolutely necessary. Most physicians agree that at best, spinal surgery should only be used for those patients who have altered bowel and/or bladder function (severe constipation, inability to empty the bladder, or loss of bladder control), those who have tried everything else, have excruciating leg pain, or something called neurological deficits or progressive motor weakness (like foot drop).


In our next blog I will be discussing non-surgical alternatives for back pain relief. These options will include chiropractic, spinal decompression, acupuncture, physical therapy, and rehabilitation.

If you'd like to access more information regarding these treatment options, go to www.DrGordonOnline.net or www.MyDiscPainReport.com.

2 comments:

  1. Will this treatment help if there are no disks left in the lubmar area. About 6/7 disks are gone in that area, just bone on bone. will this treatment still help me.

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  2. JoAnn,
    Sorry about the delay in this response. The severity of the disc degeneration must be accurately assessed with an MRI or CT scan of the lumbar spine. Depending on the diagnostic study results, various treatment options may be available. The DRX 9000 has been found to increase intervetebral disc spacing and aid in rehydration of the disc itself. It also helps to relieve nerve irritation resulting in peripheral leg pain.

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