Anyone who’s ever suffered from back pain knows how depressingly debilitating it can be. When it strikes, it can set off a series of unfortunate events affecting everything from work to family life to the activities we usually enjoy.
Chronic back pain afflicts so many people, upending their lives. And while they want the pain to stop, the prospect of surgery can haul them up short.
But surgical solutions have changed, just like everything else in the world. Today, there’s an alternative which looks nothing like the back surgeries of the past. Minimally invasive spine surgery is the smart way to treat back pain, offering shorter recovery times and fewer complications.
Open surgery no more
Prior to the advent of minimally invasive spine surgery, open surgery required an incision of between 5 and 6 inches in length be made to access the surgical site. Muscles needed to be retracted, creating another factor for patients to recover from.
Incisions for minimally invasive surgeries are extremely small; only large enough to accommodate the insertion of an endoscope to guide the surgeon through the procedure.
Smaller instruments are used and the surgeon’s way forward is smoothed by real time images transmitted to a screen in the operating theater.
The advantages
Minimally invasive surgeries are increasingly sought out by patients and not just because they’ll have smaller incisions requiring fewer stitches/staples and less pain due to eliminating the need for cutting and retracting muscles.
But the incision itself is a source of one of minimally invasive spine surgery’s most attractive features – the risk of infection is greatly reduced. And with infection being the most common of all surgical complications, that’s a major selling point.
This style of surgery also provokes less bleeding and because of the reduced disturbance of soft tissue required to facilitate the surgeon’s work, recovery times are greatly reduced.
Procedures
There are several spine conditions which are uniquely suited to correction by minimally invasive spine surgery. One of these is disc herniations.
An endoscopic discectomy removes the bulging contents of the disc, relieving the pressure it’s caused in adjacent nerves and relieving pain.
Lumbar fusion is another surgical intervention well-adapted to minimally invasive surgery.
Many patients can leave hospital on the same day as the procedure. Something else that makes this type of spine surgery more efficient, less dangerous to the patient and more cost-effective for provider and patient alike.
Pain following surgery is greatly reduced with minimally invasive spine surgery, so patients recover much more quickly. Most report they were able to get back to the lives as they enjoyed prior to requiring surgery much more quickly than they’d expected.
And doesn’t all this take a lot of the anxiety patients have about spine surgery out of the equation?
Spine Consult NJ
At Spine Consult, we specialize in treating conditions of the spine with everything from conservative, non-invasive treatments to surgery, including minimally invasive spine surgery.
Contact us to find out more about minimally invasive spine surgery.