Chronic Back Pain? Spinal Fusion May Not Help
Most adults in the United States will suffer from excruciating chronic back pain at some time in their lives. For the lucky ones, it will be short-lived. For the others, it may continue for weeks, months, or even years. Surgery is the attempted fix for more than 1.2 million Americans suffering from chronic back pain each year, and about 300,000 of these back surgeries were spinal fusion. This procedure is done for herniated discs or other disc injuries and involves joining vertebrae so they cannot move. Often they are held in place with metal screws or rods. However, fusion was