Surgery And Your Sciatica

Many people suffer from many different kinds of back pain and related lower back injuries

, including Sciatica. When in pain, all we know to do is seek out solutions. Generally we rely on a family practitioner or local medical doctor who we have heard about. This starts the patient in the "medical model" approach to a resolution to their problem. Unfortunately, the end result for this model is often surgery. Surgery, although sometimes necessary, is rarely the best option for first time patients with Sciatica. In the following article we will discuss the benefits of chiropractic care to surgery. It will address the positive and the negative to both types of treatment.

The study discussed here was conducted by the National Spine Center in Alberta Canada and published in October of 2010 in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics [1]. The control group consisted of 40 patients that had all been suffering from sciatica for at longer than 3 months. These patient had all undergone treatments using pain medication, making lifestyle adjustments, undergone physical therapy, underwent massage therapy or acupuncture with no results. When these procedures did not work; their primary doctor referred them to specialists that deemed them appropriate candidates for surgery.

The people in this group were separated into two groups: one group underwent a surgical procedure called microdiscectomy and the other group was treated by a chiropractic using standard procedures. The patients were given the opportunity of having the other type of treatment after 3 months if they were not satisfied with the first treatment.

What Were the Results?

Both groups saw marked improvements over baseline scores - meaning that they saw noticeable improvements whereas previous approaches had failed. A full 60% of the study participants benefited from chiropractic spinal manipulation to the SAME degree as if they underwent surgery. After 1 year there was no difference in outcome success based on the treatment method. That means that a full 60% of people referred for surgery by their primary care physicians and accepted as surgical candidates by the neurosurgeon could actually get similar results with chiropractic. That is a lot of potentially unnecessary cutting, anesthesia and ER time. There is one paragraph in the results section of this study that is easy to overlook, but incredibly important. There were originally 120 candidates of which 60 met the study criteria and were asked to participate. Of these 60, 20 refused. Why? Because they had never been offered an alternative to surgery; such as spinal manipulation. They didn't want to participate in the study and be randomly placed in the surgery group without first trying the spinal manipulation! This is incredibly telling. Not only does it demonstrate that there is still a need for people and primary care physicians to learn more about chiropractic procedures, it also demonstrates that people understand the risks and costs of surgery and want to exhaust other possibilities first.

This was the first study to ever look at people who had failed traditional medical management of sciatica. Currently most patients that fail 'conservative care' are referred for a surgical evaluation. Now we know that 60% of these folks could avoid surgery and get similar long-term outcomes with chiropractic.

Find a doctor that can help you get out of pain and solve your problem conservatively before you or someone you know jumps into something invasive. There is no going back from surgery. Do your research and see your chiropractor before you choose that route.

McMorland G, Suter E, Casha S, du Plessis SJ, Hurlbert RJ., Manipulation or microdiskectomy for sciatica? A prospective randomized clinical study. J Manipulative Physiol Ther. 2010; Oct;33(8):576-84.

by: Jon Bjarnason

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