Back pain that won’t quit? When to consider spine surgery

If you have chronic neck or back pain, you may wonder if spine surgery could help. It depends on the cause of the pain.  

I recommend having your doctor diagnose your situation, but often, if the pain stays at the back of the neck or at the back of the lumbar spine (lower back), it may be a musculoskeletal problem. People can often treat pain like this with over-the-counter medicines, rest, physical therapy and injections.  

Neck or back pain may signal something more serious, like a pinched nerve, if there is an electrical sensation in the body, or pain, weakness or numbness in the limbs.  

You can start the treatment process by setting up an appointment with your primary care provider, who can order imaging. If the imaging results show that surgery could help, that’s when you’d be referred to TidalHealth Neurosurgery. Surgery is not always required; we recommend conservative treatments, such as pain medicine, creams, patches, physical therapy and chiropractic care first.   

How people get pinched nerves 

Pinched nerves can be a result of a variety of situations. One of these situations comes from aging – getting older and wear on the spine cause degenerative disk disease. For those with degenerative disk disease, a physical movement can set off a problem. Other causes include a car accident, a work injury, or a physical movement without degenerative disk disease. 

Types of surgeries 

One common type of surgery is a diskectomy, in which we work on one area to relieve pain from a herniated disk that has impacted a nerve. Another type of surgery is a laminectomy, which is the removal of lamina, a type of bone, which can also be used to un-pinch a nerve.   

Many spine surgeries are outpatient; whether a surgery is inpatient or outpatient will depend on how extensive the surgery is. Recovery may take several weeks, but once a patient is fully recovered, they can generally live life without limitations.  

It’s important to get weakness or numbness symptoms looked at early, because catching the problem earlier will likely lead to a more successful surgery.