Post-Surgery Back Pain

One of our goals at Chiropractic Care is to prevent as many spinal surgeries as possible. We understand that surgery is necessary for certain conditions, but we also feel that many surgeries can be prevented with conservative chiropractic care. Patients who have already undergone surgery require special consideration when determining the appropriate treatment plan. Cox Flexion Distraction manipulation is an effective therapy that gently relieves pressure on spinal nerves and is frequently utilized in our offices to treat post-spinal surgery patients.

The rate of spinal surgery in the United States and the associated costs continues to rise even though there is little evidence in favor of surgical spinal fusion for back conditions. In some cases, the spinal surgery is ineffective, a condition called failed back surgery syndrome (FBSS). Other patients will develop pain months or even years after surgery. A typical reason for this developing pain is called Adjacent Segment Disease (ASD). One common type of surgery is a spinal fusion. This surgery alters the normal biomechanics of the spine limiting motion at the fused levels. This loss of motion is compensated for by an increase in motion at spinal levels above and below the fused site resulting in a significant amount of additional forces being placed on those facet joints  and discs. These additional forces may result in vertebral degeneration, disc herniation, spinal instability and spondylolisthesis which can result in pain and spinal stenosis.

One form of therapy that is beneficial to post-surgical pain cases is Cox decompression manipulation. Decompression manipulation is considered a low velocity, low amplitude adjusting procedure and has been shown to create a decrease in intradiscal pressure, an increase in posterior disc height while opening the vertebral canal and intervertebral foramen thus relieving pressure on pain sensitive nerves.

Dr. Kruse, along with Dr. Jerrilyn Cambron have recently had a paper accepted for publication demonstrating that Cox manipulation may also benefit post-surgical patients who suffer from adjacent segment disease.

Cox Decompression Chiropractic Manipulation of a Patient with Post-surgical Lumbar Fusion: A Case Report.  Accepted for publication in the Journal of Chiropractic Medicine (JCM), 2011. 

Drs. Kruse and Cambron have also had a study accepted for publication demonstrating the positive outcomes of Cox Decompression Manipulation performed to a larger population of patients who previously underwent lower back spinal surgery.

Post-Surgical Lumbar Spine pain treated with Cox Chiropractic Flexion Distraction manipulation: A retrospective study in a private practice setting. Accepted for publication in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics (JMPT), 2011.

For more information and research on this topic, go to http://www.coxchirocare.com/ and look for post-surgery back pain.

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