Spine Surgery

What Spine Conditions May Require Surgery?

Although the physicians at Orthocenter begin your spine treatment using nonsurgical options, they may recommend surgery when conservative measures fail to relieve your pain or improve your mobility.

These are a few of the conditions that may need surgery:

• Degenerative disc disease
• Herniated disc
• Bone spurs
• Spinal instability
• Spondylolysis (stress fracture)
• Spinal stenosis (narrowing of the spinal canal)

Compression fractures caused by osteoporosis may also be treated with spine surgery.

What are the Different Types of Spine Surgery?

As experts in spine surgery, the team at Orthocenter is extremely experienced in many techniques and approaches to lumbar (lower back) and cervical (neck) surgery.

These are only a few examples of the basic types of spine surgery:

• Disc Replacement Surgery: When a disc is too damaged to support the spine, it’s removed and replaced with a synthetic or artificial disc. Disc replacement relieves your back pain while preserving normal motion.
• Discectomy: Your surgeon removes the damaged part of a disc or the entire disc, then performs spinal fusion.
• Spinal Fusion: Spinal fusion stabilizes the spine by using a bone graft to fuse two vertebrae together. A fusion results in some degree of limited mobility.
• Laminectomy: This procedure relieves pressure on spinal nerves by removing part of a vertebra.
• Foraminotomy: This is another procedure to decompress nerves by enlarging the opening (foramen) where nerves leave the spine.

What are the Benefits of Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery?

Lumbar and cervical surgeries that once required open surgery can now be done using minimally invasive procedures.

Minimally invasive spine surgery uses a few very small incisions, which significantly reduce the trauma compared with one long incision. Then your surgeon uses an endoscope, which holds a camera and lighting, and specialized surgical tools, all of which are in narrow tubes that are easily inserted through the incisions.

The health benefits of minimally invasive spine surgery include:

• Less pain after your surgery
• Less bleeding during surgery
• Lower risk of infection
• Quicker recovery
• Minimal scarring

Here’s another important benefit: Your muscles are spared. During open surgery, the incision cuts through all tissues, including your muscles.

With minimally invasive procedures, your surgeon at Orthocenter can gently push the muscles aside to create the small space needed to insert the surgical tools. This allows your muscles to simply return to their normal position after surgery.

If you suffer from ongoing spine pain or restricted movement, call Orthocenter or book an appointment online.