Reply #4: My brother is a specialist in occupational medicine, so he sees a lot of back problems

[Lydia Leftcoast]

He got kicked out of one group practice for not referring enough people for surgery.

His approach is to try low tech methods first. Sometimes the problem is not in the spine but in a muscle imbalance (muscles work in pairs, and sometimes one or the other becomes "too weak" for its partner) that can be corrected through massage therapy and exercises to strengthen the muscles that are functioning poorly or changes in work habits.

The same is true of any other chronic musculoskeletal pain. Try the low-tech methods before resorting to surgery.

He has also told me that many people without back pain appear to have abnormal spinal disks on X-rays or MRIs, so a spinal disorder may not be the cause of one's pain, even if the X-rays indicate it.

He's had patients who were still in pain after expensive surgery but recovered after a course of massage therapy.