Back Pain Surgery Study Results

Based on a Study on Back Pain by Ohio Workers Compensation

  Are you thinking about having a back surgery because of back pain?  Is this due to pain from a herniated or degenerated disc stenosis, sciatica or facet syndrome? People in pain from these conditions often have so much back pain that they start to consider surgery a real option.  A study on back pain was published a few years ago that has some great information for people considering back surgery.  This information is important for people with back pain before making a back surgery decision.   This study was done by the State of Ohio on people in the Worker’s Compensation program.

Why Is This Study Important?

The first reason this study on back pain is important is the number of people studied.  Researchers analyzed the records of 1,450 patients who were in the worker’s compensation program in the State of Ohio. That is a very large number of people which make the results more accurate.

The second reason this study is important is the length of time.  Most studies look at patients for 1 year or less.  Researchers in this study followed patients for 2 years.

Who Was In The Study?

       Researchers looked at records of patients who had back pain and had herniated discs which were resulting in pain in their legs and other parts of their body. One half of the patients in the study decided to have surgery for their problem, the other half did not. These patients were followed for a period of 2 years so see what happened to them over that period of time.  The results will be very interesting to you. They actually shocked me!  This study on back pain is one of the best ever documented

The Results:

         Two years after the surgery decision, only 26% of the surgery patients had returned to work.  However, 67% of the non-surgical patients were already back at work by the two-year mark. This means you have a 257% better chance of returning to work if you avoid surgery.

         Another startling fact is that 30% of the people who had surgery had a second surgery within that 2 year period of time they were studied. this means that if you have a surgery, you have a good chance of needing a second one within a very short amount of time.

         Next, the researchers studied is whether the patients were still on painkillers which could become addictive. The researchers noted that 30% of the patients were taking opioid type drugs before the surgery. After surgery, 41% more of the patients were on daily opioid doses for a total of 71% of the surgery patients taking major drugs daily.

         The number of people on opioid painkillers who didn’t get surgery did not increase.

        Finally, the average number of days missed from work was studied.  The patients who had surgery averaged 1140 days off of work and the patients who chose not have surgery missed an average of only 316 days.

The Conclusion:

      This study showed that surgery on people with back pain and a diagnosis of disc degeneration, disc herniation and or radiculopathy in a Workers Comp. setting is associated with:

• a significant increase in disability,
• a significant increase in  opiate painkiller use,
• prolonged work loss,
• and poor return to work status.

         It should be noted that results will vary and anyone may have different results