Will I Require Surgery To Cure My Lower Back Pain?
Will I require surgery to cure my Lower Back Pain?
Well, here is a very interesting statistic, if you’re currently suffering from low back pain - there is a less than 10 percent chance that you will require surgery to cure your back pain. So that means on a purely statistical basis you’re have a more than 90% chance of NOT requiring surgery.
There are certain spinal injuries, diseases and conditions which can only be effectively treated by surgery. This is why you should always consult a Doctor regarding the possibility of potentially serious underlying causes of your back pain.
I have always been of the opinion that I do not want to have any unnecessary surgery. The question uppermost in the minds of most people is very likely to be ‘will I require surgery to cure my back pain?’
Apart from the obvious risks associated with any Operation which involves a Surgeon operating within millimetres of the spinal cord, there are major concerns over the proliferation of hospital superbugs such as Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Clostridium Difficile (C-Difficile). According to the UK Office for National Statistics, the numbers of deaths from these infections have doubled and tripled respectively from 2001 to 2005, and now number in the thousands annually.
Another question which is worth considering is ‘If I do have surgery will it be effective in the long term?’ There is a study by Weber, H involving a group of 280 patients over a 10 year period, and comparing the results achieved through surgical intervention compare to ‘conservative’ or non-surgical treatment. I was amazed to learn that after ten years, any differences in the results experienced initially by the two groups had disappeared. This means that in the long term it would appear that surgery does not appear to offer any advantage for many types of low back pain problems!
So what are the alternatives?
These include, in no particular order :-
- Physiotherapy
- Chiropractic
- Osteopathy
- Conservative Therapies
- Acupuncture
- Epidural Steroid or Anesthetic Injections
- Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAID’s)
- Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS)
- Chemonucleolysis
If all these sound a little confusing - then you’re probably not alone. One of the most difficult aspects of trying to deal with back pain is the complexity of of he subject and the number of differing therapies, all claiming to offer unique cures.
Personally, I have tried Physiotherapy, Chiropractic, Osteopathy, Conservative Therapies, NSAID’s and TENs and you can read reviews about them all, but the most important fact I believe I ever learned about the subject was to finally UNDERSTAND THE ROOT CAUSES OF BACK PAIN. It was only at this point that I could start to take control of a situation that had randomly and frighteningly controlled me for over twenty years.
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