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California Spinal Cord Injury Article
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When Back Surgery Should be Considered as Pain Relief
If you’re one of the thousands of people that are experiencing back pain, and have tried rehabilitative therapy, medications and holistic treatments with no success, you might want to consider surgery. However, before you consider this option make sure that you’re comfortable with the decision. Always seek a second or third opinion, and weigh your options carefully. Doctors do make mistakes, so you’ll need to be up to date about all of the different types of medical conditions that cause back pain. Read on to learn more about some them, and why it might be necessary to have surgery.
One type of surgery on the back that might be necessary is for extreme leg pain. At times there is nerve involvement from a pinched nerve in the back. Most often people with nerve damage will find they have a herniated disk in the back. If you’ve tried working with your doctor on stopping the pain through exercise, diet, medications and professional physical therapy, then it might be time to look at surgery. Pain from a herniated disk in your back comes from compression of a nerve because the disk has slipped out of its natural position. Pain can also come from the pressure on ligaments in the back too. Lumbar decompression surgery has had highly successful rates of success for a lot of patients. Recovery time is usually within four weeks if you will follow your doctor’s directions.
Another condition is spondylolisthesis. This is typically thought of as an old age disease, and is part of the degenerative disk disease category. A simple x-ray can determine if it’s spondylolisthesis. A pain result from this because of a low back vertebra has moved out of the vertebra column. In other words, it has slipped out of the spines natural alignment, and is compressing nerves in the lower back. There are the standard treatments such as injections to relieve nerve inflammation, back strengthening exercises, and back support belts, but if they don’t work surgery should be considered. A fusion surgery of the spine will hold the vertebra in place, and stop the pain in the lower back area. Recovery times vary, but it usually takes 6 to 12 months, depending on age and other complications.
Osteoarthritis is a big culprit in lower back pain. Again, it’s another disease that is linked with getting older. As you get older the disk space in your back compresses, sometimes the ligaments will move up on a nerve root and cause serious pain. An x-ray of the spinal cord and a CAT scan can determine if osteoarthritis is the cause of your pain. If treatment with medication and injections into the spinal column don’t work then surgery might be the next step toward pain relief for your back. Surgery can be performed with decompression of the lumbar, or it might require your spine to be fused, so the nerves can heal. Recovery time is in months, and is successful in at least 60% of patients.
Some spinal surgeries are certainly emergency situations. If you experience symptoms of bowel or urinary incontinence with severe sudden pain in the back, seek help immediately. If you’re diagnosed with an abdominal aorta aneurysm then there’s not a choice on back surgery. If the artery ruptures in the spine, it could cause death instantaneously. Another condition is called cauda equina syndrome and it’s a serious matter. The symptoms are just the same as for an abdominal aorta aneurysm. The nerve roots at the base of the spine can be damaged and cause symptoms that can result from a ruptured disk, or even an infection or osteoarthritis of the spine. Permanent paralysis from this medical condition is occurs often. There’s a host of other problems associated with this condition such as impairment of a sexual drive, and loss of foot movement. Sometimes even with back surgery, it’s too late to repair the damage by cauda equina damaged nerves.
A healthy back and spinal column is the key to living a life without pain. Sometimes life throws a kink into it by causing severe debilitating pain. Options that include surgery are not a pleasant idea to think about, but sometimes it’s the option left for a pain free life.
California Spinal Cord Injury News
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