Sure, you can avoid it, but mostly with some effort. Specifically if you're manually changing the column type which is covered by an index, you'd have to:
Add a new column with a new index. Copy the old data over and change the code/add a trigger to keep them synchronised. Change the code to use the new column instead. Remove the sync code/trigger. Drop the old column/index. And you're potentially left with a weird name, because the purpose of the column didn't change, just the type.
Or you could use gh-ost and do it in one go, semi-automated without any code changes, and with the same column name.
