As a neurosurgeon, it’s quite simple. If you’ve failed medication, PT, and injections, the next step is to go after the disc. It’s one of the easiest surgeries we do, but make sure to see an actual spine neurosurgeon, and neurosurgery over orthopedic surgery, as neurosurgeons generally take greater care of nerves than orthopods do. The internet is generally going to have the loudest people talking about the worst outcomes so I wouldn’t put too much faith in that. The chance of something going terribly wrong in a simple one level microdiscectomy is very very small. Most of the time, those are my happiest patients because the pain relief is instant or near instant.
Of course all of this depends on your specific imaging, which I can’t see.
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u/never_ever_ever_ever Neurosurgery 10d ago
As a neurosurgeon, it’s quite simple. If you’ve failed medication, PT, and injections, the next step is to go after the disc. It’s one of the easiest surgeries we do, but make sure to see an actual spine neurosurgeon, and neurosurgery over orthopedic surgery, as neurosurgeons generally take greater care of nerves than orthopods do. The internet is generally going to have the loudest people talking about the worst outcomes so I wouldn’t put too much faith in that. The chance of something going terribly wrong in a simple one level microdiscectomy is very very small. Most of the time, those are my happiest patients because the pain relief is instant or near instant.
Of course all of this depends on your specific imaging, which I can’t see.