Revision Spine Surgery Specialist
-
- Tweet
Verma Spine
Board Certified Orthopedic Spine Surgeon Serving Long Beach and Orange County
When back pain and other symptoms persist after you have had surgery to correct the problem, you may need revision spine surgery. At Verma Spine, serving patients in Los Alamitos, Long Beach, and Orange County, California, Kushagra Verma, MD, MS, FAAOS, determines why you still have problems, talks with you about your treatment options, and carefully plans and performs revision spine surgery when it’s the best choice for you. To learn more about revision spine surgery, call the office or schedule an appointment online today.
Revision Spine Surgery Q & A
What is revision spine surgery?
Revision spine surgery is a procedure to repair problems and alleviate symptoms that persist after an earlier surgery. Since revision surgeries are more challenging than your original surgery, Dr. Verma spends extra time reviewing your medical records, evaluating your health, and talking about the treatment options that may be available.
When might I need revision surgery?
Needing revision surgery doesn’t necessarily mean that anything went wrong during your original surgery. These are a few reasons you may need revision spine surgery:
Progressive deformities
New symptoms develop when a spinal deformity like scoliosis continues to get progressively worse, even if the initial surgery was effective.
Adjacent level disease
This problem refers to the degeneration at the vertebral joints above or below the site of your original surgery.
Pseudarthrosis
Pseudarthrosis is a failure of the bone to heal properly within a year after a bone fusion.
Recurring conditions
Some spinal conditions such as disc herniation, slipped discs, and degenerative disc disease can recur at the same or different area as your surgery.
Loose instrumentation
Plates, screws, and other instruments used to repair your spine can become loose, often due to problems that affect healing such as osteoporosis.
What symptoms indicate I need revision spine surgery?
Back pain, cramped muscles, shooting pain, and aching pain that occurs during certain activities are all common symptoms that something isn’t right with your spine following spine surgery. Your pain may return shortly after your surgery, or it can be delayed, which is often the sign of ongoing degeneration or an infection.
How do you perform revision spine surgery?
Every revision spine surgery is customized to meet each person’s unique problem. A large variety of procedures may be used.
Dr. Verma may need to add more internal support using plates or screws or remove implants, perform decompression surgery, a bone fusion, or disc replacement. He may need to clean away infected tissues, or essentially repeat the same procedure as your earlier surgery.
Whenever possible, Dr. Verma uses minimally invasive surgery to perform revision spine surgery. Minimally invasive procedures are done with very small incisions and narrow surgical tools that fit through the incisions. In most cases, your muscles are preserved by stretching the fibers to create a small opening.
If you continue to have back pain following surgery, call Verma Spine or schedule an appointment online.
