How Do I Know When Surgery is the Answer

Most back pain isn’t treated with surgery as much anymore.  Surgery is too risky.  But if you are considering whether to have surgery, you should make sure you’ve tried everything else first.  Spine surgery should always be a last choice and not a first option.  That means you might have to aggressively let your doctor know he or she should try everything in their arsenal of treatments before recommending surgery.  Also, the doctor should be able to tell you with certainty that surgery has a good chance of fixing what’s causing the pain.  That right there tells you why the number of spinal surgeries are declining.  It’s really hard to say with any certainty that surgery will fix a back pain problem.  You don’t want to be a guinea pig, but it’s up to you to tell the doctor.  I would see at least 2 and probably 3 different doctors before I’d agree to surgery.