Ways to Avoid Spine Surgery

Hi,

I am Dr Siddharth Verma and welcome to this video. Today's topic is, how to avoid a spine surgery? So, you have been suffering from some kind of back pain, some injury or maybe the mixture of both. Maybe you didn't have anything but you still are undergoing a spine surgery. So don't worry, we are here to help you. Prevention is always better than cure, so you must stay fit. Most of the back injuries, strains and sprains occur because the person is not very flexible.

It might create big trouble for the back. This can also lead to a strain. Repetitive strain can lead to various issues with your back which can be as trivial as a myofascial syndrome, in which your muscles are affected or as severe as a disc herniation.In this video, we will concentrate on how to avoid this. So the first step is prevention which you can achieve by staying fit, by controlling your weight, by physical activities and by following the correct technique of lifting weights. This is the first step. Now the second step is early treatment. So if you know that you have been suffering from a backache but if the back pain is persisting over a week or two, then don't ignore and don't think. Immediately go and seek treatment from spine and pain specialist and talk to him about your problem and I am sure he will be able to sort it out. Now, the next step supposing you didn't pay heed to what your doctor said, you will continue to gain weight you continue to be lumber, resulting in the same kind of pain.

You will have this kind of pain and now the problem will increase. You go to a doctor one fine day and he suggests an MRI and there is a big bulging disc and it is compressing on your nerves and now your doctor says you need a surgery. So can you avoid the surgery? In many cases, yes you can and in many cases, you cannot. So, when you can and when you cannot, it depends on the opinion of your treating surgeon and your spine and pain specialist. There is some movement which is happening while you flex or extend your back. So, if this is not there then in most cases you can avoid an open surgery and how it can be done, it can be done with as trivial a procedure and as transforaminal neuroplasty procedure.

Number 2, nowadays we have a very nice procedure which is known as endoscopic foraminoscopy or foraminoplasty or endoscopic discectomy. This is a very noble procedure which is done by the spine and pain specialist and in this procedure we just give a small neck of the size of maybe smaller than a centimetre also. Then we reached this foramen from where this nerve comes out and we actually put in a camera through this small hollow tube, which is of the size of this pen, which is very hollow. The patient stays awake under local anaesthesia and doesn't feel any pain till the point. This hollow canal touches his nerves on his sensitive nerve fibre. Then we put our camera inside the foramen and we see the nerves, we see the disc and we take this material which is compressing on these nerves, we clean it, we wash it.We see very small tissue, we see these tissues under a big TV. So we can very accurately take out the tissues which are causing this compression and help you get relief from your pain. So need not go for any open surgery in these cases because in these cases we can help you by involving in this percutaneous procedure which is way less invasive than a surgery.

The main difference is that you don't get any general anaesthesia. You can walk on the same day of the procedure, you can go to the washroom, stay in a hospital for a couple of days, get a discharged and you can resume your active life in maybe 4-5 days or so. You will be given some precautions but more or less, your mobile, you don't have any loss of work hours and you can be very productive. Now another reason why people come to us is not to avoid the first surgery but how to avoid this second surgery? Because many of the patients have already undergone under 1 surgery and this still have this kind of pain which is left and the treating doctor has suggested them another surgery. Now they don't want to undergo a second surgery. In those cases, many of them provide there is no instability of these bony spines. We can help them with these procedures. If you want to know more you can also visit me on my Lybrate website which is www.lybrate.com/doctor/siddharthverma.

Thank you for watching, have a good day.