Hey everyone! 

This is Dr. David of El Paso Manual Physical Therapy.

I wanted to talk to you all about new research that came out within the past few years where they studied minimally invasive spine surgery for the low back.

They’re looking at people that have had a disc herniation, like a bulge in the disc, and they cut off the disc to alleviate the pressure on the nerve.

They’re doing that surgery on people that just have back pain & may or may not have nerve pain as well.

So get this –> They split up a group of people that had back pain into 2 groups.

One group got the traditional spine surgery where they cut the disk off. The surgery is called a discectomy.

The other group got a fake discectomy surgery…. a fake surgery!

What they did in the fake group is they actually cut the person open, made the incisions, but they didn’t touch the disc.

They left the disc herniation alone. 

Then they sewed everybody up, and they followed up with these people later.

What they found was that both groups ended up the same. 

Both groups improved in their back pain.

So we have a huge question to answer:

Is this surgery even necessary?

Now, as a physical therapist and back pain expert, what I can tell you is that absolutely there are cases where people have severe pain down the leg, weakness in the muscles, they can’t walk.

They’ve had an MRI, and it shows that that disc is just really squeezing that nerve quite a bit.

Having a disc surgery is probably going to do you a lot good in that case.

You definitely want to talk to the surgeon and see if that’s the best option for you.

But if you don’t have all those severe limitations like you can’t walk, you’re losing muscles and all that, and you’re just having some back pain. 

Even if you have some pain down the leg, if it’s not limiting you from your daily activities, then you have a really good chance of getting away with not ever having to have surgery.

We see people like this all the time.

I just had a client that started in the past month who has had a back surgery in the past, and the back pain came back, because the underlying problem was never fixed. She’s got some weak abdominal muscles, and so we’re working on that. She’s getting gradually, gradually better. We see this happen all the time.

She’s got some weak abdominal muscles, and so we’re working on that. She’s getting gradually, gradually better. We see this happen all the time.

She’s getting gradually better. We see this happen all the time.

The underlying problem in a lot of these cases is some sort of weakness, some sort of muscle problem, which you can’t find in an MRI or an x-ray. 

It has to be checked by hand in person.

That’s what we do here.

We find those problems.

We give people the solutions that are unique to them –> whether it’s a specific abdominal muscle or glute muscle, or it could be a hip flexor or something else.

We get to the bottom of things, and fixing that allows you to escape having the surgery, get off of any pain killers you’re taking day-to-day and more importantly, get back to doing things that you love to do like exercise, dance, have fun, play with the kids, play with the grandkids without having to worry that you’re making your back pain worse or that you might be setting yourself up for a surgery later on in life.

So guys, understand this surgery, the discectomy, you might need it; you might not.

But chances are that you could probably get away without having that surgery if you’re doing the right things.

You got to fix that underlying problem.

I hope this helps, know the research that’s out there.

I hope to educate you on this.

If you have any questions about this, please get in touch with us.

We’d love to answer any questions.

Have a wonderful day.