- Hi, this is Dr. Ryan Suh.
I'm a Gonstead, New York City chiropractor
in Midtown Manhattan.
In this video, we are going to talk about
failed low back surgery syndrome.
So what the syndrome is, is this:
For those who had the spinal fusion surgery
or had a disc operated on,
studies have shown that failure rate
can be as high as up to 40%.
So, one of the reasons why that's so is this:
John Hopkins Medical School released a study
and they talk about 25% of low back pain
is not from on your back.
It's actually coming from your pelvic foundation,
meaning, your hips.
To simplify it, the explanation,
our pelvic foundation is a lot like foundation for a house.
So, if your foundation is nice, strong and stable,
your structure above it will be stable
and you'll have a stable spine.
If your foundation is unstable,
unstable structure, unstable spine.
So, the other reason is also due to a structural shift
and we are going to talk about that in detail
with these two recent X-ray cases.
Okay, so before we jump into the X-ray cases,
I want to clarify what a lumbar structural shift is.
So, I have right here a model of lumbar spine.
Tilt so we can see in the front.
This right here is a nucleus pulposus, okay.
This fella acts like a ball bearing
and allows us to pivot in all degrees of motion
such as forward, backwards, tilt to the sides,
rotate left and right.
And as we see over here, we have a lot of rings
surrounding this nucleus pulposus.
So, we have 25 of these layers.
It acts like a containment dam
to keep this jelly ball bearing in place.
Now, when we have some kind of traumatic event,
and it causes a breach to these containment dams,
the ball bearing can leak out in three common directions.
It can leak out backwards to the left,
backwards to the right or straight backwards.
So when that happens, this whole entire structure itself
will shift backwards as such
and this is what we are looking for on the X-ray.
In this X-ray case, this particular patient
had a microdiscectomy at the fifth lumbar disc.
After surgery, this patient continued to experience
sharp low back pains while sitting,
sharp left sciatica pain all the way down to the left foot
to the bottom of his left foot,
plantar fasciitis and every time this person walked
this person felt like there was pins and needles
underneath the left ball of his foot.
So, normal is supposed to look like...
Structure should be proper alignment in the front
and the back and also relatively parallel
with a slight, little tilt backwards,
but what we don't want to see is a severe tilt as such.
So, in this particular patient,
his structure was misaligned backwards
and tilted inferior-wards just like what we can see
in this X-ray as such.
So, because it tilted inferior-wards as such,
as you can see, the structural shift,
it puts a lot of pressure on that nerve.
That's why it was producing all those symptoms.
So what we did in this office was structurally realign him,
which alleviates and took a lot of pressure
off that nerve and his symptoms are significantly better
where he no longer have left sciatica,
he no longer has left foot pain
and no more low back pains.
In this X-ray case, we have spinal fusion.
The patient initially experienced a lot
of sharp discomfort in the low back and had a surgery.
After the surgery, for the past 10 years or so,
the patient continues to experience a lot
of low back pain while standing, sitting,
getting out of the car and getting out of bed
and that's because
ideally, the structures should be in proper alignment.
Just like railroad tracks,
I don't want to see this thing out of alignment.
It should be a proper alignment front and backwards.
So, when the structure shifts backwards,
it also tilts inferior-wards.
It puts a lot of obstruction to that nerve
causing all those symptoms
and that's what we see in this case over here.
I drew these lines to show the proper alignment.
As you can see, these two lines do not line up.
This structure has shifted backwards by seven millimeters.
So, it's no surprise that nerve has a lot of symptoms to it.
So, what we did for this patient was
we structurally re-corrected back into proper position,
took a lot of pressure off that nerve
and the patient no longer experiences any discomfort
while standing, sitting,
getting out of the car or getting out of bed.
So, once again,
a study from John Hopkins Medical School says
25% of low back pain
is actually coming from a misaligned pelvis
and a structural shift
in the lumbar spine can cause herniated discs.
As a Gonstead chiropractor, I help and correct
misaligned pelvis and herniated discs
all day long, every single day.
This is my expertise, my bread and butter.
So, this is what I want you to do next.
Please, share this information on your Timeline.
You probably have some friends or family members
who are in a lot of low back pains.
They tried everything
and they are possibly considering surgery
or they already had the surgery
and they are still in a lot of pain
and you may not be aware of their condition
so when they see this video,
they'll get the information they need.
So once again, this is Dr. Ryan Suh.
Thank you. Have a good night.