THE SEQUENCE OF CHRONIC PAIN AND MORE SURGERIES
Even though the following does not happen in 100% of traumatic spine operations, it is something that can potentially happen to any patient and should be considered before making a decision about spine surgery.
In traumatic spine surgery, supporting structures of the spine are cut or removed which causes instability. Instability is the abnormal movement of that segment of the spine which produces back and/or leg pain. Very likely, this problem will end up with another kind of traumatic spine surgery being recommended: FUSION; and once you cross that bridge..there’s no return. With fusion the overall patient satisfaction does not exceed 60 % and 40% of the patient’s condition remain the same or gets even worse. Biomechanically speaking, fused discs do not carry load; therefore, the load is transferred to adjacent levels which get overwhelmed; this in turn leads to more surgeries.
Multiple spine operations push many patients over the edge reaching the end of the road with intractable pain and no solution other than palliative pain management. This is the realm of the FAILED BACK SURGERY SYNDROME.