Surgery - Is it to be? or not to be?

Dear Friends of Roscoe Chiropractic,

Can you believe that January is almost at an end! Where does the time go? A lot is going on here at Roscoe Chiropractic.  We are in the middle of revamping our website which is really exciting!  If you haven't seen our website I beg you to wait another few weeks and then check it out.  It will be worth the wait. We will have all kinds of new features available, such as all new patient forms available to download and print prior to a new patient visit and Doc Chris is even going to film some short educational videos about Chiropractic so I will make sure to give everyone the link when it is finished and published. You''ll even be able to find these emails posted on the new site as well as a link to an archive of all the old emails I've sent since I started. Like I said -- Exciting stuff going on here. :)

Today I was reading some information about chiropractic and back surgery and found some interesting studies that I'd like to share with you.  We all know that chiropractic generally stands to avoid surgery if any other options are available.  We know that there are situations in which surgery is completely necessary to save a life! It just seems that all too often medical doctors tend to default to surgery as the first answer. A study published in Spine showed a group of people diagnosed with a condition called "burst fracture" (a form of spinal fracture). One half of the group was assigned to a non-surgical conservative form of care and the other half was assigned to undergo a surgical procedure to repair the fracture.

The non-operative care called for the patients to wear a back brace for three months at all times except when bathing.  They were to be in a hospital bed at this time until the pain was "controlled". After that they were encouraged to resume daily activities and light sedentary work up to their pain threshold. At the conclusion of the study it showed no significant difference in long term pain relief and improvement in  over all function. The most significant difference was that surgery cost four times what the conservative care cost. Not to mention the heightened risk of being under anesthesia and the invasive nature of the procedure.

So it's important if your doctor is encouraging surgery for you that you at least think twice before agreeing. Investigate all your options before choosing surgery. :)

I hope you are all well and healthy this cold week. Enjoy the snow and I hear it's supposed to be negative 10 tonight!

Take care,
Karla H.
Roscoe Chiropractic Centre