Common Back Pain & Treatment Options

Dr. Khan Answers - What is Back Pain

In this video, Dr. Khan discusses common back pain, shedding light on this all-too-common condition, and the various surgical and non-surgical options.

Understanding Back Pain & Treatment | New Jersey Brain and Spine

Back pain is a very very common complaint that patients show up to the office or to the emergency room with. I would say that more than 90% of patients with back pain are due to muscularkeeletal issues, where they may have lifted something up without proper posture, [or] they may have torn a muscle or a ligament in their back.

The good news is a lot of these problems are self-limited, and with some rest taking anti-inflammatories the pain usually goes away. We’ve all been there we’ve all had back pain, and fortunately that back pain has gone away.

People with disc herniations, 90% of the time the pain gets better by itself. In the unfortunate 10% of people where the pain just doesn’t go away, that’s when they need to come see a neurosurgeon like myself or a spine surgeon. Once the patient has tried all the non-surgical options such as

  • physical therapy
  • steroid injections,
  • acupuncture,
  • chiropractic manipulation,
  • among other treatments,

if it’s just not working and the pain is debilitating or they have any kind of weakness that is concerning, surgery may unfortunately be what you need to finally get rid of this problem.

There are two big broad categories of surgeries that may be discussed with you on one end you have a simple decompression surgery and on the other end you may have a decompression and fusion surgery.

The lumbar decompression surgery is not very extensive all. It requires is opening the area where the problem is and cleaning it out. There are no screws there are no rods there is no fusion. A lumbar decompression surgery tends to get rid of people’s problems; in many cases where it makes sense.

On the other hand you have a more aggressive procedure like a spinal fusion if you have instability or you have a problem such as an infection that has caused instability or in some cases spinal tumors that have caused instability then you will need a more aggressive procedure such as a spinal fusion: they’re two opposite ends of the spectrum [Music]

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