In our State College chiropractic clinic, we see a large number of people who are dealing with back pain, and a few of these patients have been advised they might need surgery to recover. Thankfully, Drs. Matt & Annie Reyes has helped many people get pain relief without the need for any type of surgery. The science agrees with the success we see in our office. One research study published in the medical journal Spine found that consulting with a chiropractor as your first step in dealing with your back issues 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 the state of Washington who first saw either a surgeon or a chiropractor for their back pain issues. They then used three years' worth of follow-up medical records to determine whether the subjects ended up having back surgery in an attempt to correct the problem.
What the researchers determined was that about 43% of the patients who first consulted with a surgeon for their back pain ended up with surgery in that 3-year time frame, whereas only 1.5 percent 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. Visiting a chiropractor considerably 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 take note this important detail: this study was carried out by orthopedic surgeons from Dartmouth College, and printed in the world's most distinguished medical journal on spinal injuries.
Any surgical procedure has risks, but a serious problem related to spine surgery is that there is a very high failure rate. 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%."
"It is extremely difficult to identify unequivocal predictor factors that can be used to accurately predict the outcome of surgery."
As a chiropractor, Drs. Matt & Annie Reyes is convinced that surgery should be the absolute last choice for treating back pain. Chiropractic care works to restore your spine to its normal function--without the need of high-risk surgery or drugs--and many studies have confirmed the effectiveness of chiropractic for back pain.
If you live in State College and you need care for your back pain, give our practice a call today at (814) 308-9352 for a consultation or an appointment. We'll help get you back on the road to a pain-free life!
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Dr. Matt Reyes was born and raised in Apalachin, a small town in Upstate New York. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Kinesiology with a concentration in Fitness Development from the State University at New York College at Cortland. He then fulfilled his ambition to become a Doctor of Chiropractic when he graduated from New York Chiropractic College in 2013.
