Featuring Dr. Ramesh Sahjpaul, MD, MSc, FRCSC, Neurosurgeon
, Post Spinal Surgery Recovery Video Title: Post Spinal Surgery Recovery

Duration: 1 minute, 59 seconds

Proper care of the back after surgery is crucial to both short-term and long-term success.  

A good surgical result can be ruined by improper care of your back after surgery, and the role of physiotherapy is crucial. Well, typically patients will experience significant improvement in their symptoms immediately after the surgery.  

However, it’s not uncommon to experience some degree of ongoing symptoms especially some incisional pain, or sometimes some nerve pain. It’s usually fairly mild and can be managed conservatively or with over-the-counter medications.  

It often requires some reassurance, but the important thing is that the relief from the surgery is fairly significant and fairly quick. However, that does require some compliance from patients post-operatively as far as doing some physiotherapy, some stretching exercises that are provided to them.  

Physiotherapy really becomes important at approximately six weeks after surgery, and at that time the patient then learns proper lifting techniques, avoidance of prolonged sitting because we know that sitting tends to aggravate lumbar pain.  

And there may be some situations in which individuals may have to make some changes in their workplace for ergonomic improvements to try to prevent further back pain episodes or further recurrent disc herniations.  

Even though disc surgery is very successful, it’s important to recognize that there is a small but definite chance of running into problems down the road. So patients can sometimes experience recurrent disc herniation and may require further treatment sometimes surgical.  

However, with appropriate physiotherapy, back care, back exercises, strengthening exercises, especially things such as core strength done with a guidance of appropriate individuals, the risk of running into problems in the future can be kept at an absolute minimum.

Presenter: Dr. Ramesh Sahjpaul, Neurosurgeon, Vancouver, BC

Local Practitioners: Neurosurgeon