When Your Doctor Suggests the Option of Spinal Arthritis Surgery
If your doctor is suggesting that you consider spinal arthritis surgery, you should already have undergone several months of conservative, nonsurgical treatments. Surgery is reserved for the small minority of people whose symptoms have become chronic and debilitating despite treatments like pain medication, physical therapy, epidural steroid injections, and other conservative treatments. It may take some time to establish a combination of treatments that works for you, so try to be patient and integrate a wide variety of techniques into your regimen, like yoga, massage, low-impact exercise, hot/cold compresses, acupuncture, and behavior modification.
Types of Spinal Arthritis Surgery
In the event that spine surgery does become an option for you, there are generally two surgical approaches that are available – open spine operations and endoscopic procedures. Both forms of surgery involve different risks and benefits, so it will be important to gather as much information as possible before making a decision. While they share the same aim of eliminating neural irritation or compression caused by joint friction, bone spurs, or spondylolisthesis, these procedures differ in the following important ways:
- Open spine operation - This surgery involves a large incision and the excision of the bone or tissue that is causing neural compression. Due to its highly invasive nature, the procedure requires hospitalization and general anesthesia. Spinal fusion is generally performed after bone and tissue excision to eliminate movement at the site of the arthritic joint. Recovery from this type of spinal arthritis surgery can be long and arduous.
- Endoscopic procedure - This is a minimally invasive, outpatient procedure that does not require hospitalization or general anesthesia. Through a small incision, the surgeon will either remove a small portion of the anatomical element that is causing neural compression, or ablate (desensitize with a heat source) the local nerve ending inside of an arthritic joint. Most patients who undergo this type of procedure are back on their feet a few hours after surgery and the overall recovery period is much shorter than that of an open spine operation.
Getting a Variety of Opinions from Doctors
If you are considering spinal arthritis surgery, it will be important to get opinions from more than one doctor to learn about the latest advances in surgical procedures, to ensure that surgery is necessary, and to make sure you have attempted all conservative treatment methods. You will likely need to visit a doctor with specialization in the spine, such as an orthopedist or neurologist.
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