How to Treat Back Pain Through Surgery

In most cases, back pain should be treated through surgery only as a last resort and only for very specific conditions. In fact, many back conditions that can be relieved by surgery are often not accompanied by severe pain. Spinal deformities, nerve damage and pinched nerves are examples of painful back conditions that may only respond to surgery.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Treat Back Pain Through Surgery

1. Consider how your back pain affects your lifestyle and whether it's keeping you from activities you need and want to do. Some patients find that even conditions that will respond to surgery may respond equally well to time.

2. Ask your doctor about less-invasive back surgery procedures. Some back surgeries can be accomplished with fewer incisions, through the use of tubes called endoscopes or, in a few cases, using lasers.

3. Relieve extreme, chronic pain caused by rheumatoid arthritis (RA) through back surgery. A large percentage of RA sufferers who chose fusion back surgery reported decreased pain and increased spinal stability.

4. Explore back surgery to treat squeezed or pinch nerves. Injury or age may cause the disks that separate the vertebrae to wear away or to be pushed together.

5. Have disk replacement surgery. This is a viable option for those suffering from pinched nerves due to fallen or crushed vertebrae. Doctors can make more room between the vertebrae by removing bone or removing the entire disk and fusing the remaining bones together.

6. Investigate back pain relief through surgery for nerve damage. Pain that travels through your arms or down your legs is one symptom of nerve damage. Tingling and/or numbness in your extremities may also signal nerve damage.

7. Use back surgery to address spine deformities. Doctors and patients may choose to treat advanced cases of humpback, curvature of the spine or spine slippage via surgery.

Tips & Warnings

• A long-term examination of back surgery by the Spine Patients Outcome Research Trial (SPORT) found that 10 years after surgery, many patients who did not have surgery felt as good as those who opted to have it.
• There is no guarantee that surgery will eliminate, or even alleviate, pain. In rare cases, it may even cause more pain. In addition, back surgery may result in paralysis, weakness or numbness in the extremities, stroke, bowel and bladder problems, hoarseness and other vocal problems, as well as a variety of other maladies. Thoroughly discuss these and other possible risks with your doctor.

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