You’ve lived with back or neck pain long enough.
It limits your ability to work, rest, and enjoy life. You wince through the day, stretching, straining, and eating fistfuls of over-the-counter pain meds. It’s time for a solution that does more than mask your pain for a few minutes.
But what can you do? What are your options?
At Axis Spine Clinic, we’ll carefully determine what’s causing your pain and together we’ll find a way to address it. Should surgery be required—and it often isn’t—you’re likely looking at either Cervical Disc Fusion or Cervical Disc Replacement.
Here’s a quick review of the pros and cons of each surgery…
Reducing Pain Through Cervical Disc Fusion
When people think “back surgery,” they’re usually thinking of Cervical Disc Fusion—and for good reason. This approach to stabilizing spines has been around since 1891, though how the surgery is performed has improved dramatically through the decades.
Your spine is essentially a chain of vertebrae, bones that stay connected and flexible through spinal discs and elastic ligaments. A cervical fusion fuses two or more vertebrae to protect the nerves running through those discs. The fusion is typically accomplished using a combination of bone tissue and medical hardware.
The bone tissue can come from elsewhere in your body, be harvested from a deceased donor, or be synthetic. It’s strategically placed to prompt your body to begin building new bone at the fusion site. The vertebrae are often joined with screws, plates, and rods, as well.
In some situations, a disc is simply removed and a metal cage inserted in its place. The cage prompts bone to slowly grow around it, in time creating a disc that provides spinal stability.
The Pros of Cervical Disc Fusion
This procedure has been proven to significantly help with pain, numbness, and muscle weakness. Strengthening your spine relieves pressure on your spinal cord and nerves branching off it, and a fusion provides solid stability and strength.
Plus, this surgery has been performed for more than a century. The risks and rewards are well understood and surgeons can predict with great accuracy who’s a good candidate for this procedure.
The Cons of Cervical Disc Fusion
One downside of a Cervical Disc Fusion is reduced motion in the fused area of the spine. It’s not an insignificant concern—especially if a fusion happens in the neck. A glance over your shoulder will be a thing of the past, which greatly reduces your ability to play many sports and participate in other activities.
There’s also the risk of Adjacent Level Degeneration. Because you’ve removed a joint in your spine, the stress that the joint endured will be redistributed to the joints above and below the fusion point, wearing those joints out more quickly.
One study indicates that patients who have a disc fusion have up to a 15% higher chance of needing additional surgery within 20 years.
“That’s a study I share with younger patients who are looking to have discs fused in their necks,” says Axis Spine Clinic’s neurosurgeon, Dr. Berg. “I try talking young patients out of this aggressive surgery because they’re likely to have multiple 20-year periods ahead of them, some of which may need to include more surgery.”
Reducing Pain Through Cervical Disc Replacement
Cervical disc replacement has been available since 2000, and we’ve performed it often at Axis Spine Clinic. This approach to addressing compromised discs is growing in popularity for several reasons.
The Pros of Cervical Disc Replacement
This surgical approach removes and replaces a damaged disc with an artificial one. Because there’s no fusing of vertebrae, your spine retains its range of motion, and there’s no additional stress on adjacent discs—two important considerations when deciding whether to have surgery.
Some patients report that, following post-surgery therapy, their range of motion improves. Why? Because the pain they were experiencing is diminished or gone, giving them greater ease in turning and twisting. Plus, with the damaged disc replaced, there’s no longer pressure on nerves that engage with the disc.
By avoiding stressing vertebrae next to the replacement site, there’s no collateral damage occurring that a fusion could cause.
The Cons of Cervical Disc Replacement
If there’s any concern regarding Cervical Disc Replacement surgery, it’s this: It hasn’t been around long enough to know how a prosthetic disc will perform in thirty or forty years. Perhaps a replacement will be required then—we simply don’t yet know.
What Both Surgeries Have In Common
Both Cervical Disc Fusion and Cervical Disc Replacement are significant surgeries, each requiring post-surgical recovery and rehabilitation. You’ll almost certainly need physical therapy and anti-inflammatory drugs, and your daily activities will be curtailed for some time.
You can likely return to normal activities in four to six weeks, but, at least immediately after surgery, you’ll need assistance doing even routine tasks.
But both surgeries also have this in common: They can bring remarkable relief to those suffering from chronic back and neck pain. If that’s your goal—to reduce pain and resume activities you once enjoyed—we’ll help you chart a path there.
It starts with an informative, caring consultation with Dr. Berg at Axis Spine Clinic—so call 614-414-3915 today.