New Surgeries Banish Back Pain
An active man who runs and lifts weights, Erwin Stainback thought he had pulled a muscle when he woke up one morning with back pain. Within days, however, the pain was so severe he couldn't drive or even lift his briefcase.
"It was pain like you cannot imagine," says Stainback, of Winston-Salem. Stainback had ruptured a disc -- one of the flat, circular structures containing cartilage that cushion the bones of the spine. Part of the disc's soft center was bulging out and pressing on a nerve, causing the pain.
Removing the bulging part of the disc used to require major surgery and a six-week recovery. Now, surgeons perform the procedure through a small incision -- no hospital stay is required and recovery time is dramatically shortened.
"Immediately after the surgery I felt like a new person because there was no pain," says Stainback. "I had the surgery at 3 p.m. and by 7 p.m. I was home watching TV and felt like I could mow the grass. It was that dramatic."
The procedure that made his quick recovery possible is one of several new breakthroughs in back surgery.
"We are now treating conditions that 10 years ago were considered untreatable," says WFUBMC neurosurgeon John Wilson, M.D. "Before, people often had to live with chronic back pain, which can affect a person's quality of life and is a major cause of missed days at work."
Neurosurgeon Charles Branch, M.D., says refinements have made back procedures so much safer and faster they can now be offered to older patients.
For discectomies, like Stainback's, surgeons make a half-inch incision and remove the protruding part of the disc through a tube, so no muscle tissue is cut. The procedure used to require an open incision and pulling muscles away from the spinal column.
For older patients who need spinal reconstruction, doctors have improved techniques so that the surgery is safer and faster.
"Ten years ago, we had to tell 70-year-olds with worn-out backs who couldn't walk, 'I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do for you,'" said Branch. "Now, we can almost literally take the diseased back apart, put it back together again and get them up and going. It's pretty dramatic."
The surgery involves removing bone spurs and calluses from the spine joints, filling disc spaces with bone and stabilizing the spine with rods and screws.
"Now, even older patients can have safe surgeries and high patient satisfaction," says Branch. "We're able to get people up and around who've been immobile."
from BestHealth September 2000