Want To Avoid Surgery? See A Chiropractor

In our St. Petersburg, FL office, we see a lot of people who are dealing with back pain, and some of these folks have been informed they might need surgery to recover. Thankfully, Dr. Kristin Eloshway-Kidgell has helped many people get relief without the need for any type of operation. The scientific research confirms the success we see in our office. One research study published in the journal Spine found that seeing a chiropractor as your first move in overcoming with your back pain may actually keep you off of the operating table.

In this scientific study, medical researchers from Dartmouth analyzed statistics from about 1,900 workers from Washington state who first saw either an orthopedic surgeon or a chiropractic doctor for their low back issues. They then examined three years' worth of follow-up medical data to ascertain whether the subjects wound up having back surgery in an effort to correct the issue.

What the researchers determined was that about 43% of the individuals who first consulted with a surgeon for their back problems ended up with surgery in that 3-year time span, whereas only 1.5 percent of those who first consulted with 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 findings. Consulting with a chiropractor significantly decreases 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 consider this important point: this study was carried out by orthopedic surgeons from Dartmouth College, and printed in the world's most prestigious medical publication on spinal injury.

Surgery: The Last Resort

Any surgery has risks, but a serious problem associated with spinal surgery is that there's a very high rate of failure. In an important review 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, Dr. Kristin Eloshway-Kidgell 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 efficacy of chiropractic for back pain.

If you live in St. Petersburg, FL and you need care for your back pain, give our practice a call today at (727) 637-2957 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.