The risks of sciatica surgery often outweigh the potential benefits. Spinal surgery should always be a final consideration to treat any type of chronic neck, back or sciatica pain. Back surgery has proven itself to be a mostly failed experiment in treating ongoing symptoms and the sometimes horrific results speak loudly for themselves.
There is actually a name for the epidemic of poor surgical outcomes within the sciatica industry: Failed back surgery syndrome. Please read more of this crucial essay in order to avoid becoming yet another victim of this widespread nightmarish scenario.
Health Risks of Sciatica Surgery
Surgical intervention always demonstrates serious health risks. Even the least invasive approach still is dangerous and complications are very commonly experienced. Some of the typical risks involved with any type of sciatica surgery include: infection, poor surgical results, spinal fluid leaks, nerve damage, scar tissue formation and drug dependency issues.
Obviously, the more involved the procedure, the more risks are inherent to the operation. Minimally invasive and injection procedures are mostly safe, but can still cause serious and even life threatening complications in rare instances. True open surgical interventions are very risky and also demonstrate the worst possible curative results.
Curative Limitations of Some Surgeries
The most common results of spinal surgery fall into one of 2 possible scenarios:
The first is the patient who feels instant relief and typically enjoys a good result for a few weeks, months or even years. However, eventually the pain either comes back to the original location, often worse than ever, or moves to a new location requiring additional surgical care.
The second possibility is the person who is unchanged or instantly worse after surgery. This pour soul chanced it all at the mere possibility of finding sciatica relief, but instead awakes with escalated symptoms.
Although doctors always say that the pain will diminish within a few days, it rarely does, often becoming disabling and redefining the meaning of hell on earth. Of course, it is possible that patients have other results, including complete success. However, judging by the tens of thousands of case studies you have sent me, these seem to be the extreme minority, compared to the utter failures or mediocre outcomes.
Understanding and Accepting the Risks of Sciatica Surgery
Failed sciatica surgery is a very real risk. Do not allow any doctor to tell you that your procedure is 100% safe and guaranteed to work, because they will be lying.
Remember that many people who do not find relief from sciatica pain are misdiagnosed. It is not that conservative treatment has failed them. It is that the diagnostic process is flawed and treatments are not targeting the correct source of pain. Surgery that follows this path will disable, not cure.
The worst part is that in cases of misdiagnosed sciatica, the structural abnormality being blamed for causing the pain is operated on, even though it is innocent. Well, after the procedure is complete and real surgical damage has been done, at least the diagnosis will be right. Now the region really is truly causing pain and is unlikely to stop, since the original source remains unidentified on top of the new and unnecessary procedural trauma.
