Help for your back

Type or designation of therapy

Endoscopic operation on the spine.

The typical complaints

Severe, usually sudden back pain – often radiating down the leg, occasionally down to the foot.

These investigations are necessary

Questioning, physical exam, MRI, sometimes X-ray.

The area of application

Soft herniated discs – this is what relatively recent defects that are not older than a few weeks are called. Older, so-called hard incidents with adhesions and ossification must be removed in a classic operation. Incipient stenoses at the nerve exit holes can also be treated endoscopically, but central stenoses (narrowing of the spinal canal) cannot.

Here's how it works

A thin tube (technical term endoscope) is advanced into the spinal canal of the spine. It has a diameter of a few millimeters. Inside the endoscope, filigree instruments can be brought to the place of use - for example mini forceps, with which the protruding intervertebral disc tissue can be removed.

The sequence

The operation is performed under light twilight anesthesia. It takes around 30 to 45 minutes. As a rule, the patient stays in the hospital for two nights for monitoring. He should not go to work for two weeks, possibly longer for a physically demanding job. Cycling and swimming are allowed again after three weeks, and contact sports are possible again after about six weeks.

chances and risks

It is a low-risk and, above all, tissue-friendly method for removing a herniated disc. The success rate is over 95 percent. Recurrent herniated discs – i.e. incidents that occur again in the same place – can also be elegantly removed in this way. Complications such as wound infections are extremely rare (0.01 percent).

Costs

Are covered by all health insurance companies.

Notes, explanations

According to the surgeon, he has performed around 8,000 endoscopic disc operations and has given several scientific lectures and published book contributions and other writings.