Spinal pain is extremely common, particularly among older adults, and it can be excruciating. But experienced surgeons will not always recommend spinal surgery for every patient.

Determining if Surgery will be Successful

Edward White Hospital’s Orthopedic Surgeon Clinton Davis, MD has been treating patients with spinal pain and deformities for more than 20 years. He believes a successful procedure must begin with determining who will benefit from surgery and pinpointing the cause of the patient’s symptoms.

Some patients have multiple procedures, but are left to live their lives with the same pain they had before they went into the operating room.

“I have found that by far the most common reason for these failed surgeries is not a problem with surgical technique, but rather a failure to identify and correct the often subtle anatomic pathology which is the true cause of the pain,” Dr. Davis said.

It’s not always obvious which of the patient’s spinal abnormalities need to be corrected in order to relieve the specific pain— which is especially true in older patients since nearly all of them have multiple degenerative problems only some of which need to be addressed to relieve the pain.

Surgery Treatment Options

Edward White Hospital’s Spine Care Center offers several spinal surgical procedures including:

• Discectomy
• Lumbar Fusion
• Cervical Fusion
• Disc Replacement
• Laminectomy

Steps to Evaluating Patients

Before determining if surgery will likely benefit a patient, an experienced surgeon will:

• Listen to patient’s concerns
• Carefully conduct examination
• Correlating findings with diagnostic imaging tests including X-Rays or MRI scans

“It is the listening part of this process that I think is most commonly neglected by many surgeons,” Dr. Davis added.

Patients who suffer persistent pain from a pinched nerve will usually benefit from surgical decompression after all non-surgical treatments— exercises, pain management, medications and spinal injections— fail to work. But Davis said the patient’s spinal stability, deformity and balance must be taken into consideration along with other health conditions before any surgery is recommended.

Click here to listen to Dr. Davis’s podcast or for more information about the Spine Care Center at Edward White Hospital, including a referral to one of our specialists, call 1-888-243-3627.