Back Surgery? No Thanks, Doctor!

Say you hurt your back at work, and they sent you for an x-ray and an MRI, and they told you that you needed surgery? Would you agree to the surgery, just to get back to work sooner? Would you reason that, once you had the surgery, you could get by with less pain medication than before? Unfortunately, a study of 1,450 injured workers in Ohio tells a different story. In 2010, researchers reviewed the records of workers in the Ohio Bureau of Worker’s Compensation database who had been diagnosed with disc degeneration, disc herniation, or radiculopathy (tingling or pain down one or both legs). About half of those patients had been sent for spinal fusion surgery, in which two or more vertebrae are fused together. The other half of the patients had no surgery.

Two years later, 36 percent of the people who had surgery had complications, and many returned for a second operation. Only 26 percent had returned to work. Eleven percent of the back surgery patients were permanently disabled, compared to two percent of the non-surgical patients.

Very sadly, there was a large jump in the use of painkillers in the post-surgical group, with 76 percent on opioid drugs for the long term. Tragically, seventeen of this group had died within the first two years following surgery.

The study’s lead author, Dr. Trang Nguyen of the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, summed it up this way: “The outcomes of this procedure (lumbar fusion) for degenerative disc disease and disc herniation make it an unfortunate treatment choice.” Dr. Nguyen is now one voice among a growing number of physicians speaking out against back surgery. I’d have to say, this is one time I agree with a medical doctor 100 percent.