SPINAL SURGERY

PAIN MANAGEMENT OF SPINAL CONDITIONS

Radiculopathy, degenerative disc disease, disc herniation, arthritis of the spine, spinal stenosis, scoliosis, and many other types of spinal conditions may cause chronic back pain. For some back pain may be mild physical discomfort, but for others, chronic, back pain can be debilitating, leading to immobility, emotional distress and poor quality of life.

Dr Setati’s primary goal in treating the pain of the spine is to reduce pain and increase mobility. He will tailor each treatment according to the patient because every patient has a different severity of back pain. Pain management treatments are also dependent on your symptoms and any other health conditions you may have.

While pain medications, braces, activity modification and physiotherapy may be valuable for pain relief, pain or steroid injections or therapies administered by your neurosurgeon may also be advised for long term pain management. These treatments include:

• Epidural steroids
  Epidural steroids can be given through injections into the affected area for long term pain relief of conditions such as spinal stenosis, muscular spasms, sciatica or radiculopathy. These injections can be injected into or next to the spinal canal, providing relief of back pain for weeks to months. This treatment is usually done on an outpatient basis with sedation or under general anaesthesia, using an X-ray or CT scan to monitor the whole process.
• Spinal cord stimulation (SCS)
  Spinal cord stimulation is a non-invasive treatment for chronic back pain. During a small surgery, a device is implanted under the skin which allows mild electric currents to be sent to your spinal cord, providing pain relief.

When these methods fail, Dr Setati would consider surgery for back pain. This is seen as a last resort as surgery to the spine require serious consideration.