Surgery is typically the final resort to treat back stiffness. However, a surgery may be the only choice in certain cases. Such cases include, no response to non surgical treatment, herniated disk, splinters in the backbone or neurologic deficits that are caused due to compression of nerves.
A back trouble surgery can be split up into 3 classes. These include, the surgery to heal disc issues, surgery to stabilizie the backbone and surgery to make more space in your backbone. All of these surgeries are engineered to cure precise back pain conditions and they follow certain procedures for the same.
The first sort of back stiffness surgery i.e. Surgery for disc problems is generally used when a nerve is compressed. This surgery aims at decompressing the nerve and hence offering back pain relief. This kind of surgery may be used to treat sciatica. Patients who have a disc that presses a nerve root or can't benefit from conservative treatments are usually advised this type of surgery.
This surgery can also be utilised for patients who've terrible pain that goes down until the bum and the legs, which is an outstanding sign of sciatica. It may be used in the event of patients who show neurological warning signs like ankle reflex or loss of urinary control.
Surgery for disc problems can be further categorized as Discectomy, Microdiscectomy, Percutaneous Disc Removal, Laser Disk Decompression and Chemonucleolysis. Again, all of these surgeries follow different procedures and they come with their own set of advantages and drawbacks. Therefore, it's essential that one should remember all of these before zeroing in on any one back pain surgery.
Back pain surgery meant to stabilise the backbone is done to join the two backbones together. In this surgery, bone grafts are placed along or in between the backbones. Then metal plates or screws could be used to join the vertebrae to one another. This type of surgery is normally used when the spinal structure becomes unstable due to some injury or problems like spondylolisthesis.
The third category of back pain surgery, the one that is used to create more space in spine is utilized for those that suffer from spinal stenosis. In a number of cases, even some parts of the vertebrae have to be removed to make more space. This consequently decreases the strain on surrounding nerves and decreases back pain. There are 2 kinds of surgeries under this class and these are Laminectomy and Laminotomy.
Surgery is the last option for many patients who are suffering from severe sciatic pain or chronic back pain. Nevertheless, one should consider both the sides of the coin and understand well the danger factors involved before taking it further.