Should You Undergo Spinal Stenosis Surgery?
For most people with spinal stenosis, surgery won't be necessary to treat the condition. If you have been diagnosed with spinal stenosis, your doctor likely first asked you to begin a course of conservative (non-surgical) treatments. These methods often include anti-inflammatory medications, physical therapy, back or neck bracing, stretching, and epidural injections, among others. If you followed a conservative treatment regimen for several weeks or months and still did not find relief from pain, your doctor may have asked you consider undergoing a surgical procedure. Before signing any consent forms, you should take time to research each surgical option you have.
Spinal Stenosis Surgery Options to Consider
Surgery to treat spinal stenosis often focuses on decompression of a pinched neural structure, since a number of anatomical abnormalities can narrow the spinal canal and may impinge the spinal cord or a nerve root. Some decompression surgeries used to treat spinal stenosis include:
- Laminectomy - A procedure involving the removal of one or both laminae on a vertebra. The laminae are thin bony plates that form a protective arch around the spinal cord.
- Laminotomy - This is a procedure during which a small portion of a lamina is removed.
- Foraminotomy - A procedure that removes a small amount of the vertebral bone that makes up a foramen. The foramina are the canals through which nerve roots pass as they branch off the spinal cord.
By removing a portion of bone, these procedures attempt to give more room for the anatomical abnormality -- a bulging disc or thickened ligament, for example -- to pull away from and stop pressing on the spinal cord or affected nerve root. You should consult with your doctor -- and even a few other doctors or spine specialists -- to determine if any of these procedures would be right for you.
Risks
In addition to researching all of the spinal stenosis surgery options available to you, you should also be aware of the potential risks that any surgery poses. Any of the procedures mentioned above could result in bleeding, infections, or nerve damage, especially if they are performed as open-back or open-neck surgeries instead of minimally invasive endoscopic procedures. Furthermore, you may experience FBSS, or failed back surgery syndrome, which is a term used to describe the symptoms that develop after an unsuccessful back surgery. |
