Disc Injuries Improve Without Surgery!

Researchers find prolapsed lumbar intervertebral discs may be successfully managed without surgery in 97% of cases.

Lower back pain is very common. It causes a huge problem for people resulting in ongoing pain, disability, loss of income, and inability to enjoy life.

Often a person with lower back pain has an MRI that shows a disc injury. The back pain sufferers are often then told that they need back surgery. Researchers looked at how often a person with a lumbar disc problem ends up needing surgery. The results will definitely surprise you.

The paper, “An Assessment of Nonoperative Management Strategies in a Herniated Lumbar Disc Population: Successes Versus Failures” by Daniel T Lilly et al. was published in Global Spine Journal 2020.

From the disc injury researchers…

Conclusion: Our results suggest that the majority (97%) of patients are successfully managed non-operatively.

However, in the subset of patients that fail conservative management, male sex and prior opioid use appear to be independent predictors of treatment failure.

These findings are very important for a couple of reasons.

First the researchers found 97% of people with disc injury improved without surgery.

Second very important point, prior opiod usage made it more likely the person would not respond to conservative, non-surgical management.

This is of course another good reason to avoid opiates.

An Assessment of Nonoperative Management Strategies in a Herniated Lumbar Disc Population: Successes Versus Failures.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32677528/