Lumbar discectomy advices by Serge Obukhoff today? A neurosurgeon is a specially trained medical doctor who diagnoses and treats conditions that affect your nervous system — your brain, spinal cord and nerves. Neurosurgeons perform surgery on your nervous system, but they can also provide nonsurgical treatments. They typically try all nonoperative treatment methods — like medications, steroid injections and physical therapies — before recommending surgery. Neurosurgeons can also diagnose and treat conditions that affect the structures that support your nervous system, including: Your skull. Spinal vertebrae. Spinal disks. Blood vessels. Protective membranes and soft tissues. See even more information at Serge Obukhoff MD.
Traditional spinal fusions are used to treat instability of the spine, scoliosis, severe degeneration of the discs, or a combination of these issues. A fusion involves using bone from the patient’s body to fuse one vertebrae to another. Spinal instrumentation (pedicle screws) are placed into the vertebrae to stabilize the motion segment and assist with the fusion process. Some of the most common minimally invasive spine procedures we perform are the Lateral Lumbar Interbody Fusion (LLIF) and Minimally Invasive Transforaminal Lumbar Interbody Fusion (MIS TLIF) and percutaneous instrumentation.
Most pain in the lower back can be treated without surgery. In fact, surgery often does not relieve the pain; research suggests that 20 to 40 percent of back surgeries are not successful. This lack of success is so common that there is a medical term for it: failed back surgery syndrome. Nonetheless, there are times when back surgery is a viable or necessary option to treat serious musculoskeletal injuries or nerve compression. A pain management specialist can help you decide whether surgery is an appropriate choice after making sure you have exhausted all other options.
How do you know when you need spine surgery? When someone comes to us with extremity symptoms, we almost always suggest they first get an evaluation with their primary care physician. If a person is experiencing low back pain or neck pain, we will usually watch them over time and encourage them to maintain good, stable physical activity to see if the issue resolves. If the issue is not resolving with physical activity, over the counter treatments, or pain management and anti-inflammatory medication, the next step would be to see a doctor for an evaluation.
Spinal fusion. The surgeon removes the spinal disk between two or more vertebrae, then fuses the adjacent vertebrae using bone grafts or metal devices secured by screws. Spinal fusion may result in some loss of flexibility in the spine and requires a long recovery period to allow the bone grafts to grow and fuse the vertebrae together. Artificial disk replacement. This is considered an alternative to spinal fusion for the treatment of people with severely damaged disks. The procedure involves removal of the disk and its replacement by a synthetic disk that helps restore height and movement between the vertebrae.