What are the most common complications in spinal surgery that can be causing your pain?
While most spinal surgeries are designed to relieve pressure on the nerves or spinal cord,
sometimes the herniated disc or bone spur is not completely removed.
This can leave residual pressure on the nerve and cause the pain to persist.
If this is the case, your surgeon needs to determine if additional surgery is necessary to remove the residual material.
Trimming small bone areas is usually necessary to reach the offending herniated disc or bone spur.
Sometimes so much bone needs to be trimmed that it will cause the spine to become unstable.
The bone removed contains essential components that keep the spine segments aligned to each other.
Its removal leads to excess movement which in turn causes pinching of the nerves.
The associated symptom is increased shooting or lightning bolt-like pains resulting from certain bends or twists of the spine.
Unfortunately, development of an instability may necessitate additional fusion surgery.
If you experience any persistent shooting pain, please contact your surgeon.
For those who had a great outcome after surgery then suddenly redeveloped severe radiating pains,
there's a chance another herniation occurred at the exact same location.
This is called a recurrent disc herniation and is identified during a repeat diagnostic study.
The good news is that the recurrent disc can be resolved without surgery, although it may be very uncomfortable for several weeks.
If it does not resolve by itself, additional surgery may be recommended depending on the location of the recurrent disc.
Your options may include something as simple as repeat disc surgery to a more aggressive fusion surgery.
Within a few days to a few weeks post-op, if you develop a fever and experience increasing pain, there's a chance you may be developing an infection.
Most of the time a superficial infection can be treated with antibiotics.
Infections deeper than the skin may require your surgeon to open an incision back up to clean out the infection.
Your surgeon should be contacted immediately if you show any signs of infection.
If you develop severe headaches after your spinal surgery, you might be experiencing something called a CSF leak.
The nerves of the spine are encased in a tube of water this tube is called a dural or thecal sac.
The fluid inside the tube is called cerebral spinal fluid or CSF.
During surgery, sometimes the manipulation of the nerves can cause a small nick to this tube of fluid.
If the nick is identified during surgery, it's sewn up and the results of the surgery should not be affected.
On rare occasions, this nick is not visible during the surgery.
But once you're awake, you might get severe headaches especially when sitting or standing.
If this is the case, tell your surgeon.
Further testing will be necessary to identify the nick or fluid leak.
If small enough, it can be treated with bed rest.
If the leak is larger and more persistent, you may need to have additional surgery to repair the fluid leak.
There are other potential causes of residual or increasing pain after surgery but these are the most common ones.
To those of you who are still in pain after surgery, I want to reassure you that the pain is common and usually temporary.
Give your body time to heal, and do what you can to help your body heal as quickly as possible.
Regular exercise and stretching, once okayed with your surgeon, will help strengthen your damaged tissue from the surgery.
Now, to those of you still considering surgery, I hope I haven't scared you off -- but you should be aware of these risks.
Fortunately, the most common ones are only temporary.
But before pursuing any elective surgery, it's important for you to research the potential complications and associated risks.
Thanks for watching.