Post Back Surgery Information

Back pain is a common illness affecting people, mainly those above the age of fifty. In such cases the pain is normally due to the weakness from the bones. Other causes of back pain can be damaged discs, pinched nerves etc. At times the back problems are a result of excessive stress on the back due to pushing or lifting of heavy load.

Back surgery lends a helping hand to patients suffering from severe to chronic back pain, and in cases where other types of treatment, like mild exercises, physiotherapy etc do not have any impact. Post back surgery the patient normally gets a relief from the pain, as the surgery tends to identify and remove the causes of the pain.

During the back surgery, the surgeon tries to eliminate or reduce the causes of pain. This might be by removing a damaged or degenerated disc in the spinal cord, or by releasing or decompressing a nerve that is being pinned between discs. In case of damaged discs, the discs are removed and bone graft from another part of the patient’s body (normally the hips) are filled in the area. Post back surgery, the bones are expected to grow and fuse together the vertebrae.

Some patients might experience pain even after the back surgery. These might be due to the scar tissues that normally grow post back surgery, in the area of the bone fusion. The most common from pain experienced is in the place of the bone graft, where the pain might continue post back surgery, even after the back pain has receded.

Cases where the pain is not reduced even couple of months post the back surgery might be causes of what is normally called Failed back surgeries. In these cases, the back pain is not completed cured post back surgery. The most common cause of these cases is that the initial diagnosis of the origin and causes of the back pain are incorrect. The surgeon had diagnosed an area or cause as the origin of pain incorrectly and might have removed it during the surgery, but the actual cause and the pain continues post the back surgery

New advancement in back surgery like lasers that reduce the need for long incisions, minimally invasive surgeries, genetically produced protein that can be used in place of bone grafts to induce the body to grow bones etc. are making the back surgery a much simpler operation for the surgeon and the patients. The direct impact of these are the economic benefits, the reduction in operation and hospitalization times and the post back surgery recovery times.

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