Do You Need Surgery For A Disc Herniation In Your Spine?

Do You Need Surgery For A Disc Herniation In Your Neck or Back or Is It Time For A 2nd Opinion?

Almost weekly, a person comes in and tells me either…

1. They had surgery because an MRI showed a disc herniation pinching a nerve that may have helped for a while and then worsened over time OR often didn’t help at all (usually why they’re coming in to see me).
2. The went to their MD for neck pain/back pain followed by prescribing medications, maybe got some PT, often several steroid injections, but they continued having problems so got sent to an orthopedist or a neurosurgeon.
3. After getting an MRI and seeing a disc bulge or herniation are told they must have surgery or they will be paralyzed maybe they’ll die.

Often these people ask the surgeon, “Hey what if I try seeing a chiropractor first? I’ve heard it can take care of these types of problems.”

The surgeon looks firmly into the person’s eyes and says, “You can’t see a chiropractor. If you do, you’ll probably be killed or very likely paralyzed.”

The ones that do make it into my office despite the surgeon’s opinion and unsubstantiated scare tactics are often understandably a little scared of getting chiropractic treatment because the all-knowing authority figure has attempted to force them to do what they want the person to do.

Some similar variation on this happens so often that I just have to talk about it.

These are Scare Tactics.

These are meant to intimidate and bully a person into doing something they don’t want to do using a perceived position of authority and trust.

They’re also an opinion that as far as needing to have surgery might be right, but often isn’t.

As far as chiropractic care paralyzing someone is an outright lie comparing it to surgical risks. Surgery is so much more likely to paralyze or even worse that it’s crazy.

I have seen thousands of people with disc bulges, herniations, and ‘bone on bone.’

‘Bone on bone’ is another common phrase that’s used to tell people they have no other option but surgery. It must be taught in medical school because it’s used so often by so many MD’s. It’s also used to a lesser degree by many other healthcare practitioners as a scare tactic to get a person to do their treatment.

This isn’t to say you can’t wear out discs or joints, you can. It’s just the way that people are told about their condition that I object to in this case.

Anyway, out of thousands of disc injuries that I’ve seen only a handful ever got surgery… since I started practicing in 1996, maybe 5 or 6 out of the entire group and some of them didn’t get enough care to see if they would get better.

Yes, sometimes people do need surgery. Sometimes, in my experience very often, they don’t. It depends.

I know that I didn’t see many severe trauma cases that really needed surgery due to massive damage. This can save someone’s life.

The question is more about those with a disc bulge or disc herniation and told they need surgery even though they haven’t explored all the conservative options first.

Let me explain.

I’ve seen some MRI’s that looked terrible, yet the person still got better.

Last year I saw someone with a very large lower back disc herniation with part of the disc broken off and floating in the spinal canal.

On exam he had motor and sensory loss in the distribution of the nerve from that area. This was very concerning to both him and me.

Often when a person has a disc finding on MRI they do not have corresponding exam findings like he did actually have.

It’s the exam findings that really mean the most, not the MRI.

This is because when someone who knows what they’re doing does an exam, they can determine how things are working or not working.

You can NEVER tell how things are working on the MRI or CT or even X-Rays.

These are static images that show a picture that is one part of the puzzle and NOT the entire picture.

This fact is lost on virtually every healthcare professional.

Exams are really a lost art because now we think we can save time and just do expensive tests to find out everything.

These other tests may very well be necessary, but they in no way replace a good history and examination… and it doesn’t matter what doctor or specialist you seen. This is still true.

Getting back to the story of the guy with a very concerning, congruent history, exam findings, and MRI. He had been sent to see a surgeon but he (the patient) was really against surgery.

He had been told there was no other option for him.

I wasn’t sure how he would do and told him we could see how he responded. I saw him for a few months and he got better… no back pain and a complete resolution of his leg symptoms and exam findings.

This type of story has been repeated so often in my office since I started practicing in 1996, that I am skeptical of a push for immediate surgery prior to spending a reasonable amount of time in chiropractic treatment first because sometimes the person gets better and avoids surgery.

You might be thinking, sure that might happen in some case but my doctor (or my friend’s doctor etc) said there’s no other option in their case.

Maybe it’s true, occasionally people need surgery BUT how do you know?

I mean it’s just the surgeon’s opinion. I can tell you, you have very little to lose even if your surgeon says a chiropractor would paralyze or kill you because statistically you’re more likely to be struck by lightning.

Wait, let me re-phrase that…

If your doctor or surgeon says that to you, immediately you must immediately question everything that they say because they clearly do not know anything about chiropractic, the massive amount of evidence showing it’s safe and effective, AND despite not knowing anything about something they try to force their uneducated opinion about something outside their area of expertise on you that was presented as fact.

It is exceptionally unlikely that they will do this only with regards to chiropractic advice which is why everything must them be called into question.

It means you need many other opinions including a chiropractic one because only a chiropractor would be an expert on what chiropractic may or may not be able to help.

There was an interesting 2007, research paper published in JMPT that looked at what were the results in care if the person’s first healthcare practitioner was a chiropractor versus if it were a medical doctor…

When primary care provider is a chiropractor compared to conventional medicine management:

• 60% fewer hospital admissions.
• 59% less hospital days.
• 62% less outpatient surgeries.
• 85% decrease in pharmaceutical costs.

A 2013, paper published in Spine Journal found that whether you needed surgery or not depended on whether you saw a chiropractor or a surgeon first…

Check out the differences in whether a person got surgery or not…

• About 42.7% of workers who saw a surgeon 1st had surgery.
• Only 1.5% of those who saw a doctor of chiropractic had back surgery!
• Here are the conclusions of the researchers… There was a very strong association between surgery and first provider seen for the back injury even after adjustment for other important variables in the study.

According to this research,

“Seeing a surgeon before a chiropractor meant the injured person had about a 28.5 TIMES greater risk of having surgery.”

A 2010, study published in JMPT looked at how a person with an MRI documented disc herniation with radiating leg symptoms (sciatica) did if they saw a chiropractor or a surgeon.

From the MD PhD researchers…

“To our knowledge, this is the first, randomized trial that directly compared spinal manipulation, which in this study was delivered by a doctor of chiropractic, and back surgery, two popular treatment choices for this prevalent health condition,” says Dr. Gordon McMorland, who co-authored the paper with neurosurgeons Steve Casha, MD, PhD, Stephan J. du Plessis, MD, and R. John Hubert, MD, Phd.

“Our research supports spinal manipulation performed by a doctor of chiropractic is a valuable and safe treatment option for those experiencing symptomatic lumbar (lower back) disc herniations, failing traditional medical management.

These individuals should consider spinal manipulation as a primary treatment.”

The AMA itself recommended seeing a chiropractor before surgery for back pain related problems.

If you are in the Texarkana area suffering from neck pain or back pain with or without a disc herniation or disc bulge and want a second opinion to see if chiropractic can help you, contact us.

We’re here to help you like Dr. Hagebusch has helped thousands of other Texarkana residents recover from so many different injuries and painful conditions.