Back Surgery…A Valid Treatment?

Here are some interesting nuggets of info you may not have known about back surgery…

• TV news magazines 20/20 and 60 Minutes ran specials on the number of medical errors in the U.S. The report included doctors who operated on the wrong side, prompting patients to use markers to let the doctor know where to do their job

• Doctors have had to research a new disorder called FBSS, “Failed Back Surgery Syndrome”

• “Imaging studies (MRI, CT, CAT Scan, etc.) overestimate the problem, resulting in an increased number of unnecessary surgeries, yet thousands of M.D.s and D.O.s don’t know this. Surgery is the last result.”
  Dr. Kuritzky, MD, Physicians and Sports Medicine, 1997.
• “90 percent of MRI’s read as abnormal”
  Patient Care, April 1997
• “Surgery is helpful in only 1 out of 100 low back pain cases.”
  Bigos, MD, American Health Care Policy Research Guidelines
• “Early and frequent use of imaging is discouraged because disc abnormalities are common and often resorb within 6 months (especially with proper spinal care). Use of such tests leads to over-diagnosis, dependence on medical care, and further unnecessary testing.”
  New England Journal of Medicine, 2001
• “67% low back surgeries worse after surgery, 2/3 of patients in more pain.”
  Spine headline, 1994

Scary.

Sam Visnic–