Back pain
due to disc slippage or damaged discs pinching nerves is a very severe
pain. Lot of minor back pain occur due to old age or due to the back being
affected by lifting or handling very heavy objects. These can normally
be cured by rest or minor physiotherapy. But chronic and severe back pain
that does not respond to treatments should be handled through back surgery.
Disc back surgery is used in cases where the discs of the spinal cord
are the cause of the pain. The spinal cord is made of a column of bones
(vertebrae) that are connected by flexible portions called discs. These
discs can be damaged due to a lot of reasons and the so disc back surgery
is required to repair these and thus reduce the pain.
During the
disc surgery on the back (also called spine fusion surgery), an initial
surgery is done on the patient to remove healthy bones from another part
of the body, usually the hip area. These bone chips are processed and
used during the disc back surgery. During the back surgery, the damaged
disc is removed and the processed bone graft is placed in the gap from
where the disc has been removed.
These bones grow and fuse the vertebrae together. In this kind of disc
surgery, it is common for the patients to experience severe pain after
the back surgery, in the place of the bone graft. This pain sometimes
continues even after the back pain has been cured. Recent advancement
in fusion surgery, make use of genetically modified protein. These are
used in place of the bone graft and are packed and placed in a cage which
is used to fill the gaps during in the disc during the back surgery.
This procedure ensures that the first surgery to get the bone chips is
not required at all. Artificial disc is also available these days and
these are being increasingly used in back surgery. The
use of minimally invasive procedures like endoscopy, laser treatments
have also made the disc back surgery simpler. The surgeon does not have
to make large incisions, but can make use of a small hole to send in the
endoscope.
Muscles are dilated rather than stripped, in order to guide the tube to
the required locations. The video camera attached to the tip of the endoscope
takes and projects large scale images of the inner areas that enables
a surgeon to get a better understanding of the problem areas and the exact
problem that is being treated.
