This blog entry will highlight more frequently asked questions about degenerative disc disease.
Q: How do you treat degenerative disc disease?
A: The most common treatment for degenerative disc disease is non-operative treatment. Usually, it gets better with rest - in a few days to a week. If necessary, people will get steroid injections to help eliminate the back pain.
Unfortunately, in some cases it does not resolve itself with non-operative treatments - especially if it's associated with weakness or tingling. Approximately, 200,000 people in the
Q: What does that operation consist of?
A: The standard spine surgery procedure for degenerative disc disease is a spinal fusion. This is where we take the pressure off the nerve and then fuse that segment. The main disadvantage of the spinal fusion is that when we fuse a disc, there may be a quicker wearing out of those discs next to the fused disc. Once a patient has a fusion, there is about a 30 percent chance, that in the next 10 years the patient will need a spinal fusion at a different disc level.
A: Is there an alternative procedure to a spinal fusion for the treatment of degenerative disc disease?
Q: Over the decades, medical researchers have been trying to develop artificial discs that would allow continued normal motion across that segment – a mobile disc. Needless to say, it is s a lot harder than the development of an artificial hip or knee.
Fortunately, there has been great success in this development. Just last summer, the Food and Drug Administration approved a surgical cervical disc replacement and recommended approval for another cervical disc. (To see FDA announcement, click here.) Additionally, there are many more similar devices under development.
