Herniated Disc Sugery

When you have a herniated disc and it causes significant nerve damage or pain so severe that it becomes unbearable and restricts your daily activities, surgery may well be required. Because of the many successful treatments of other types, this generally becomes the last resort for bulging disc treatment.

A herniated disc is certainly a very common back and neck injury, and its severity can range significantly. In most cases, surgery will not be required at all and there will be plenty of treatments that you could take up in order to remedy the issue. For your doctor to actually recommend that you take a surgical path they will want to confirm the disc is actually progressed past bulging to herniation.

They will want to know that you have tried other treatments first. These will  include medications, injections, physical therapy, decompression therapy, exercise, and many others.

Through one or more of these particular methods most people will find that their condition is rectified but there will obviously be that unfortunate few who will need to take further action. Those who are suffering from severe pain and have suffered nerve damage that is restricting the activities in their daily lives will likely want to consider surgery as their last resort. This may be cervical herniated disc surgery (of the neck), or severely injured disc surgery in other areas of the spine.

There are a number of different types of herniated disc surgery procedures that may be needed for a herniated disc, and your neurosurgeon will pick the most appropriate one for your condition. Most commonly, the approach will be to have a laminectomy and a discectomy.

If you have a laminectomy then portions of the vertebrae within your spinal cord will be removed in order to allow additional space for the nerves. In a discectomy, the portion of the vertebrae that is pressing up against the spinal-cord will be removed in order to release pressure. A fusion of the different vertebrae may also be conducted in order to reduce the chances of any recurrence of the problem. There are also now much less invasive and traumatic state of the art methods (such as the one described by Dr. Noel  Perin below) of doing some surgeries today.

The main benefit of having either of these types of surgery for a herniated disc will be that after rehabilitation has been conducted you can return to your daily activities as if you had never had a problem in the first place. You may continue to feel pain after the operation, but this will generally only be for a brief period, and in most cases you should be fully healed fairly quickly.

Misconceptions about herniated disc surgery

However, there are certain misconceptions associated with this type of surgery as well. Most people simply believe that after you have had the surgery everything will return to normal, but this is not always the case. Often nerve damage can be so severe that pain can continue to occur even after the surgery has been completed.

While the main issue may well have been rectified, it could be that you will require physical therapy in order to restore as much of your normal function as you possibly can. In addition, many sufferers will feel let down by the amount of time that it will take to recover, although this will differ between patients.

At the end of the day, having herniated disc surgery is the last resort that you should consider if your pain is getting unbearable. However, in most cases you will find that the problem is fully rectified and your movements are fully restored once the surgery and rehabilitation has been completed.