Brief Answer:
Back pain surgeries

Detailed Answer:
Good evening. My name is Dr. Saghafi and I am an adult neurologist.

You've not presented much information to work from so I hope you take that into consideration when you assess my response, however, I can tell you that I would very much like to recommend that you do all you can to AVOID another procedure. I believe that for a 76 year old who has had 2 surgeries and already in pain I believe a more conservative approach needs to be seriously considered before more surgery.

Can you tell me more about your degenerative arthritis? Exactly what type of procedures were performed and in what locations of the back. What is supposed to be gained by a 3rd procedure. I can tell you from my patients who have had multiple back surgeries that none have had good outcomes and one surgery always seems to lead to another. I've done my best to convince them not to go for more surgeries but it seems that surgeons do a better job at promoting themselves than I do since the only thing I can offer is to conservatively treat with things such as physical therapy, possible alternative medicine techniques such as acupuncture, biofeedback, traction, etc. and of course, medications which I'm sure you've tried.

For that matter you can include a list of medications that you've been on to see if there were any other medications to try. But again, since you've already had 2 procedures the likelihood that medication is going to offer much help is very small.

There is a device called a SOOTHEAWAY machine and they do supply a back pad that goes with the machine. I use it in my patients almost exclusively for headaches, however, it does treat other pains. Virtually all of my patients RAVE about the machine and think it is the most wonderful thing in the world.

You can get more information and look it up at www.sootheaway.com. You can see what the back pad looks like and how it would attach.

I need to advise you also of an entity called arachnoiditis which is an inflammation and swelling of the arachnoid layer of the meninges which is the covering for the spinal cord. Every time surgery is performed and the meninges are surgically split open in order to perform what ever procedure needs to be done there is a healing process that has to occur in all these layers of tissue which are opened. One of the layers is called the ARACHNOID layer. This layer, for some reason, seems to be highly sensitive to SCARRING and pain develops of a chronic nature which is very difficult to treat. In surgical cases we believe that the more procedures a person has the more times they are exposed to the possibility of developing this entity called arachnoiditis and the more likely it will be that chronic pain shall develop and become almost indistinguishable from the back pain caused by the degenerative arthritis.

This pain can often be misinterpreted by both patients and physicians as being due to to the arthritis, or the hardware, or some other cause and not remember the huge possibility that arachnoiditis pain can be severe, refractory to treatments, and with every surgery the presence of arachnoiditis increases as does its intensity.

Therefore, the way to avoid such a problem is to reduce or eliminate unnecessary surgeries to the back.

I hope this answer satisfactorily addresses your interesting question. If so, may I ask your favor of a HIGH STAR RATING with some written feedback.

Also, if there are no other questions or comments, can I ask that you CLOSE THE QUERY on your end so this question can be transacted and archived for further reference by colleagues as necessary?

Please direct more comments and questions to me in the future at:

bit.ly/drdariushsaghafi and I would be honored to answer you very quickly and continue this interesting discussion.

Please keep me informed as to the outcome of your situation.
All the best.

The query has required a total of 30 minutes of physician specific time to read, research, and compile a return envoy to the patient.

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