Longmont, Colorado Chiropractor

Another article titled “36 Percent of Acute Liver Failures Are Linked to Acetaminophen” suggests that other organ systems are also compromised by the use of over-the-counter pain medications.

Lauretti’s review of the literature found that The best evidence indicates that cervical manipulation for neck pain is much safer than the use of NSAIDs, by as much as a factor of several hundred times.

With the total number of lower back surgeries having been estimated in 1995 to exceed 250,000 in the U.S. at a hospital cost of $11,000 per patient.  This would mean that the total number of unnecessary back surgeries each year in the U.S. could approach 44,000, costing as much as $484 million.

So, the biggest risk of spinal surgery is that it may not be necessary.

The next set of risks include:

• a 2.1% chance of a serious adverse drug reaction.
• a 5-6% chance of acquiring a nosocomial infection
• a 4-36% chance of having an iatrogenic injury (medical error or adverse drug reactions).
• a 17% chance of a procedure error.
• As few as 3%, and no more than 20% of iatrogenic injuries are ever reported! Yikes!

That takes all the fun out of being a statistic, doesn’t it?

This September 2006 article from the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons says it all:

“Failed back surgery syndrome is a common problem with enormous costs to patients, insurers, and society. The etiology of failed back surgery can be poor patient selection, incorrect diagnosis, suboptimal selection of surgery, poor technique, failure to achieve surgical goals, and/or recurrent pathology.”

That my friends is right from the horse’s mouth.

The most recent controversy is from the New York Times:

“Spinal-fusion surgery is one of the most lucrative areas of medicine. An estimated half-million Americans had the operation this year, generating billions of dollars for hospitals and doctors.

But there have been serious questions about how much the surgery actually helps patients with back pain and whether surgeons’ generous fees might motivate them to overuse the procedure. Those concerns are now heightened by a growing trend among some surgeons to profit in yet another way — by investing in companies that make screws and other hardware they install.”

Now, added to concerns about medicine’s poor musculoskeletal training and dangerous statistics, we have to wonder if the orthopedist might be motivated to install 6 of those $1000 screws in your spine because they are a stockholder in a lucrative medical device manufacturer.

The sanest and safest approach is to use conservative approaches like chiropractic care first. You can always resort to drugs or surgical approaches as a last-ditch resort, but the statistics suggest that most low-back and neck pain can be successfully managed with lower costs and higher patient satisfaction by chiropractors.

You may want to explore research supporting chiropractic care for a wide variety of conditions in our Research section. There is also a significant body of work demonstrating the vastly superior Cost-Effectiveness of Chiropractic, as well as contrasting Patient Satisfaction With Chiropractic with standard Medical Care for the same conditions.

Until next time, enjoy your week.