Why Back Surgery Often Makes Things Worse
By Michael Sudbury, LMT · 6 min read
You did everything right. You got the scans. You saw the specialist. You had the surgery. And now, months later, you're still in pain — maybe worse than before. If this is your story, you are not alone, and more importantly, you are not broken.
The problem isn't you. The problem is what surgery was designed to do — and what it was never designed to address.
"I had two surgeries in three years. Both times the pain came back. Nobody could tell me why. Michael found the actual cause in the first session."
— Release Works Client
What Surgery Actually Does
Spinal surgery is a structural intervention. It addresses what's visible on imaging — a herniated disc, bone spurs, stenosis, a compressed nerve. Surgeons are extraordinarily skilled at what they do. The procedure itself may be executed perfectly.
But here's the question nobody asks before the operation: is the structure the cause, or is it a consequence?
In most cases of chronic back pain, the structural finding on your MRI is real — but it is not the origin of your pain. Research consistently shows that a significant percentage of people with herniated discs, disc degeneration, and even nerve compression on imaging have no pain whatsoever. The structure looks damaged. The person feels fine.
Conversely, many people with debilitating back pain show relatively normal imaging. The structure looks acceptable. The person is suffering.
This tells us something important: the structure is not the whole story.
What Surgery Misses
Surgery cannot touch the fascial system. It cannot release the web of connective tissue that surrounds every muscle, nerve, organ, and bone in your body. And in the vast majority of chronic back pain cases, it is fascial restriction — not structural damage — that is driving the pain.
Fascia responds to injury, stress, repetitive movement patterns, and emotional load by tightening and thickening. Over time, these restrictions create pressure — up to 2,000 pounds per square inch in severe cases — on the surrounding nerves, muscles, and joints. That pressure produces pain. It also pulls the spine out of alignment, creating the very structural findings that show up on your scan.
Surgery removes the herniated disc. It decompresses the nerve. But it leaves the fascial restriction that caused the disc to herniate in the first place completely untouched. Six months later, the pressure rebuilds. The pain returns. In some cases, scar tissue from the surgery itself creates new restrictions — and new pain.
This is not a surgical failure. It is a diagnostic one.
"The spot that hurts is never the problem. The problem is always somewhere else in the system — and that's where we go to work."
The Fascial System — What Your Surgeon Didn't Mention
The fascial system is the most pervasive tissue in the human body, and until recently, it was the most ignored. Medical training has historically treated fascia as packing material — the white stuff you cut through to get to the "important" structures.
We now understand that fascia is a continuous, intelligent, load-bearing network. It connects your foot to your skull. It transmits force across the entire body. When one area tightens — say, the hip flexors from years of desk work — the tension travels. It pulls on the lumbar spine. It compresses the sacroiliac joint. It changes how load is distributed through every disc in your lower back.
Your back pain may have its origin in your feet. Your hips. Your diaphragm. Your jaw. This is not speculation — it is anatomy. And it is exactly what the Release Works Method was built to assess and address systematically.
What Works Instead — Or After Surgery Has Already Failed
If you've had surgery and are still in pain, the question is not whether surgery was the right decision. That chapter is written. The question is: what does your body actually need now to heal?
The answer is movement restoration through the fascial system.
The Release Works Method of Healing™ is a trademarked, progressive protocol developed over 20 years specifically for people whose pain has not responded to conventional approaches — including surgery. It is not a technique. It is not a session. It is a complete system with a clear beginning, a measurable middle, and a defined end: a body that moves well, a person who understands why it works, and a lifelong self-care practice that keeps it that way.
In an initial postural assessment, we can often identify within minutes which restrictions are driving your pain — and demonstrate measurable change within the first protocol. Not relief. Not management. Actual change.
If this sounds like what you've been looking for, a free conversation costs nothing. Book a free consultation.
The Honest Truth About Chronic Back Pain
Most men who come to Release Works have spent years doing the right things. They've seen the right doctors. They've been compliant patients. They've had the procedures. And they've been quietly losing faith that anything can actually change.
We are here to tell you directly: it can. The Release Works Method exists because Michael Sudbury spent eight years in debilitating back pain himself, exhausted every conventional option, and refused to accept that this was simply the price of getting older. What he discovered — and systematized into a trademarked method — is that the body has a remarkable capacity to heal when you address the actual cause.
You don't have to accept this. Learn more about our approach to back pain.
Release Works does not diagnose, treat, or prescribe. The Release Works Method of Healing™ is a movement restoration practice. Consult your physician for medical advice.
Ready to stop managing and start healing? Book a free conversation at Release Works.