Sciatica Surgery

spinal stenosis

Sciatica surgery is a drastic therapy option performed on untold millions of patients who demonstrate the chronic and agonizing symptoms of unilateral or bilateral sciatica. Lower back and leg pain has reached epidemic proportions and although there are more treatments available than ever before, very few patients are able to achieve true and lasting cures. In fact, not only are most sciatica care options ineffective, but surgical interventions demonstrate some of the worst possible results and also have a high risk of causing more harm than good.

Sciatica surgery is a specialty of both the orthopedic and neurological sectors of medicine. There are a wide range of possible procedures utilized in an attempt to resolve serious and long standing sciatic pain issues, depending on the diagnosed source. The vast majority of patients will undergo lower spinal surgery, since most sciatica complaints are traced back to structural abnormalities in the lumbar or lumbosacral spinal regions. A few patients will undergo cervical spinal surgery, as their pain is theorized to exist due to spinal stenosis in the neck. A few patients will undergo non-spinal surgeries aimed at soft tissue abnormalities suspected of being the source of symptoms, such as in the case of piriformis syndrome.

Herniated discs are the most common of all the spinal irregularities treated surgically in association with lower body sciatica. While it is possible that herniated and bulging discs can indeed source sciatica symptoms, it is actually quite rare. Research statistics show little, if any, correlation between the incidence of lumbar herniations and sciatica pain conditions. In fact, clinical research clearly shows that a great number of patients have rather nasty looking herniated discs which have turned up on coincidental diagnostic imaging for unrelated conditions, while many seemingly minor disc issues are blamed daily for causing horrific and intractable pain. It makes little sense... When you consider the truly awful long term curative results from such surgeries as discectomy and spinal fusion, it is easy to see that the disc is most likely not the cause of the pain, but has merely been mistakenly identified as such. This misdiagnosis is a huge part of the iatrogenic error rampant in the healthcare sector and is a particularly huge burden to back pain sufferers worldwide.

Sciatica surgery can also be used to treat other innocent aspects of the spinal aging process, including degenerative disc disease and spinal osteoarthritis. I have yet to see a case of DDD which was truly responsible for sciatica, although many patients are diagnosed with just this verdict. This is amazing since disc desiccation is well known in the medical community to be a normal, expected and universal part of the aging process. No evidence of the process being inherently painful has ever come to definitive light. Osteoarthritic change in the lower spine is also par for the course and it is normal that people will suffer the typical central canal narrowing, foraminal narrowing and osteophyte formation common to osteoarthritis. I have seen many of these cases being the actual source of pain, but this still only represents maybe 5 to 10% of diagnosed cases.

Of course, there are many other structural issues treated surgically as well, when sciatic complaints are blamed on the changes seen on diagnostic imaging films. Some of these conditions include scoliosis, hyperlordosis, hypolordosis, spondylolisthesis, retrolisthesis and anterolisthesis. In virtually all cases, spinal fusion is utilized to fix the vertebrae into place. Of all back surgeries, this particular procedure offers the least hope of resolving pain and in many, many cases, actually makes the symptomatic expression far worse. However, it is fair to say that in at least 10% of cases, the diagnosis is correct as to the source of pain, despite the treatment being barbaric, unenlightened and virtually completely ineffectual.

My advice when it comes to sciatica surgery is simple. Don't do it, unless it is deemed a medical emergency by at least 3 different surgeons. Don't even think about it, unless all other options have been exhausted. Statistics are not on your side. Once damage has been done surgically (and yes, all manner of spinal surgeries cause incredible trauma), there may be no chance of ever being pain-free again. At the very least, do your own research and learn the real facts about sciatica surgery for yourself. If you like what you read, then by all means, you can still have the operation. However, once you go through with it, there is no "undoing" what has been perpetrated against your anatomy. Think carefully...