Surgery for Back Pain

Most episodes of back pain settle. If intrusive back pain persists, or if episodes recur frequently, surgery may be considered but fortunately this is only in a small proportion of cases. Many people manage moderate back ache, controlling their symptoms through exercise and with tablets. In the same way, occasional severe episodes are manageable although some advice on how to deal with these episodes can be helpful. At The Spine Clinic we can certainly look into the causes of these problems and offer good advice. It is when problems start to become unacceptable that many people wonder if surgery might be helpful. This point is usually when back pain becomes restrictive and intrudes into day to day activities, affecting your quality of life. One or two bad episodes a year may be acceptable. Four or five bouts bad enough to keep you off work will generally not be.

Surgery has traditionally been regarded as the 'last resort'. That remains the case to some extent, but with modern surgical techniques the prospect of surgery no longer needs to carry with it a sense of fear and avoidance . Improved diagnostic tests allow a better understanding of the true nature of the condition being treated, allowing the use of appropriate techniques (Looking into the Spine in Greater Detail). Those techniques are now far less invasive and often orientated towards the preservation of motion in the spine (What Sort of Surgery Should I Have?). All this means that surgery is now more readily considered in cases of troublesome and intrusive back pain.

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