Avoid Back Surgery

Book Description

For those individuals contemplating surgery for relief of their back pain, this new book (available on Amazon) has got to be number one on your required reading list.  In Back Surgery – Avoid the Nightmare, you’ll discover some of the outrageous practices and procedures currently in use:

Complicated spinal fusion surgery – in most cases unnecessary; 

Painful, therapeutic injections – unproven and unreliable; 

Invasive, diagnostic tests – of questionable value, often dangerous; 

Excessive imaging studies – defensive medico-legal tactics.

Special attention is given to the controversial use of spinal fusion – a complex, expensive procedure with a low rate of success.  The reasons for this operation are explained and its risks and complications are described in detail.

Back surgery patients are not often told about the injurious complications following spinal surgery – complications such as:

Failed Back Surgery Syndrome

Back surgery has failed so frequently; it’s now a legitimate “disease” category.

Continued Pain After Surgery

The reason for this common complaint is that the wrong spinal segment was operated on.  Pressure on the offending nerve was never relieved.  Or worse, it was further irritated by the surgical procedure.

Faulty Placement of Artificial Discs

Improper insertion of an artificial disc can split the underlying vertebral body into dangerous, migrating fragments.

Wrong-Site Surgery

Disastrous consequences result when the surgeon operates on the wrong part of the body, the wrong patient or uses the wrong procedure.

Broken Hardware

Implanted screws, rods and metal plates can bend, break and become dislocated, damaging adjacent nerves and blood vessels.  Broken hardware is a sure sign of joint motion and subsequent failed fusion.

These and other surgical risks are described in Back Surgery – Avoid the Nightmare.

Benjamin Goode, ASFA, is a Senior Fitness Consultant, medical writer, and educator. He’s a strong advocate of patients’ rights and skeptical when it comes to the alleged benefits of the many diagnostic and therapeutic procedures now in vogue.  He believes that since acute low back pain is a self-limiting condition and because scientific evidence shows that both conservative and invasive treatments produce the same results after two years, spinal surgery – with all its risks and complications – is not a rational first choice.

The author is optimistic in his view of the advantages of conservative (non-invasive) treatment of acute, low back pain.  In the Chapter: A Winning Strategy,

he describes the benefits, safety and success of a recommended program of medication, physical therapy and rehabilitation.

Back Surgery – Avoid the Nightmare can help you navigate through a maze of ill-defined diagnostic categories, conflicting, pain-causing conditions, and controversial surgical procedures.  It lists important questions you should ask your surgeon before he operates.  It will provide you with the information you’ll need so that if and when you sign that “Informed Consent” release, you will be truly informed.

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Benjamin Goode, ASFA is a Senior Fitness Consultant, medical writer and educator. He has had more than twenty years’ experience writing and editing patient information materials in orthopedic surgery, sports injuries and rehabilitation.

In 1972, Mr. Goode and Dr. William A. Sinton founded and published the American Journal of Sports Medicine – the first professional American journal dedicated to the diagnosis and treatment of sports-related injuries.  This journal is now the official journal of The American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine.

“I’ve now turned my attention to the important role of exercise in the maintenance and enhancement of musculoskeletal health in an aging population.”