Low Back Pain and Failed Back Surgery
Houston Chiropractor Comments: Back surgery is quite common in the US with hundreds of thousands of operations each year. Sometimes these are laminectomies and diskectomies and other times the spine is fused together so certain joints no longer move, a critical spinal function. The conservative medical approach/thinking is rest, medications, exercise, and physical therapy. If these fail, then epidural injections are often used. If there is little relief, at this point in the patient’s course, chiropractic care is usually not considered, and many patients follow the medical trajectory toward surgery.
Although most surgeons wouldn’t consider an operation to be effective for back pain, most patients think this is the primary concern for the surgeon. In reality, the surgery is more indicated when the nerve root is compressed and there are neurological signs such as muscle wasting, foot drop, or numbness. If back pain is the primary problem and not leg pain or numbness, then surgery should generally be avoided.
But most patients with leg pain will also have low back pain, and this low back pain can be quite severe. The patients that have this continued pain or numbness are called surgical failures. The term for this is failed back surgery syndrome. Entire medical conferences have been devoted to the topic/problem. Patients are left with few medical options after a failure and re-operation is especially problematic. The patient may be prescribed an opiate patch, or perhaps an implanted spinal cord stimulator, or both. These devices send electrical impulses through tiny wires that carry the signal to different areas of the spinal cord.
Sometimes these approaches work, but too often they don’t. By their nature they cannot correct a joint problem. If you had a joint/disk injury before the surgery, it is likely it is still there. Post surgical cases should be evaluated by a chiropractor to see if there is an underlying joint problem that the can be adjusted specifically.
There may be some natural alternatives to electrical implants and long term opiate medications for pain control. Certain physiotherapy, ice and exercise can be incorporated into a comprehensive drugless management program. Even counseling and behavior therapy can help to lessen the need for medications. Usually patients can be safely adjusted after the initial surgery has healed (about six weeks). It is important to consider all options before repeat operations. Active rehabilitation combined with specific chiropractic care can be the solution for many patients.
Dr. Ward Beecher practices at Beecher Chiropractic Clinic at 1001 Pineloch, Ste 700 Houston, TX 77062. You can schedule an appointment at BeecherChiropractic.com or by calling (281) 286-1300. If you have any questions regarding this blog, please comment below!
How to Prevent Low Back Pain
While 80% of us will suffer a severe back pain episode at some point in our lives, most of us at any given time should be more concerned about preventing or aggravating back pain, rather than resolving a set-back. As they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. There are two aspects to prevention of back pain: keeping strong and flexible, and avoiding mistakes during movements.
As far as exercise is concerned, nothing is more beneficial to the spine than walking. Remember that your spine is your “core,” and the core is activated with fast-paced walking. Most of us don’t think of how the spine is affected with walking, instead focusing on the legs. Make walking part of your daily routine. Walk a few blocks or across town to run an errand, rather than getting into a car for these short trips. Park a few blocks away when you have to use the car, so that you can get in a few minutes of walking. Some of us spend five minutes circling in a parking lot just to get a space close to the front door or we get frustrated when we can’t find a space close to the gym! In contrast to sitting, which increases pressure on our disks, walking strengthens muscles and dissipates the pressure on our lower disks.
Keep the back flexible through slow stretching in all of the different ranges. Tight muscles at the back of the thighs-the hamstrings are an often neglected area that affects the lower spine tremendously. To stretch these muscles, stand upright and put on foot on the back of a chair or sofa. Slowly bend forward and hold this position for 30-40 seconds. It should cause a tight burning pain at the back of the leg. It should not cause a shooting pain down your leg, or increase pain in the lower spine. If it does, then see a doctor of chiropractic (DC) immediately. When the hamstrings are flexible, this allows the pelvis to rotate forward when you bend over. If the hamstrings are not flexible, then the lower spine will bend too much to accomplish any lifting task.
The second aspect to preventing back pain is avoiding mistakes, such as lifting with your back, instead of your legs. This is especially true if an object is very heavy. Sometimes the object is light, but we lift in an awkward position, standing with most of our weight on one leg, then bending and twisting, such as getting grocery bags from a back seat, or moving and positioning a child safety seat. Especially avoid twisting motions of the lower spine while bending over. Also, use one of your hands to help brace your spine, which will decrease the pressure on your disks.
Dr. Ward Beecher practices at Beecher Chiropractic Clinic at 1001 Pineloch, Ste 700 Houston, TX 77062. You can schedule an appointment at BeecherChiropractic.com or by calling (281) 286-1300. If you have any questions regarding this blog, please comment below!
