Laminectomy

Hi Karen. I did have a laminectomy in the spring of '17. It made my issues worse after the procedure to the point that I was beside myself with pain. The next step for me was fusion and I had that summer of '17. That was a wonderful decision on my part and the doctor's. Once my rehab was complete I felt incredible.....even to this day.

This is my personal experience and I hope yours turns out to be successful.

Brent

I have had many cases of sciatica over the years. Always fixed by chiropractic...except one. I ran the gauntlet of chiro, PT and pain shots. My neurosurgeon did the MRI and saw something suspicious but couldn't tell exactly what it was. Recommended the laminectomy.

He went in and found a bone spur "literally crushing" (his description) the sciatic nerve root at L4. Got rid of it plus shaved back the calcified disk at L5 so that it would never impact the nerve either. Same day procedure...immediate relief when I woke up...diminishing pain for a week as the inflamed nerve calmed down...done. Simple and easy.

Hi Karen,

I had a laminectomy at L4/L5 and L5/S1 in May 2010 (technically they call it a "hemi-laminectomy" if they are only fixing one side of your spine, which was my case and is probably the most common way the procedure is done). They did the laminectomy (removal of bone from your spine) mainly to get at the discs that needed repair because the discs had herniated. Also, he spent a good 30 minutes of the procedure grinding down bone spurs that were also impinging on my sciatic nerves, but which hadn't been obvious in the MRI (one of the benefits of having surgery - he can look around inside you and see better than the scans, and find other possible sources of the problem).

I had the laminectomy done along with a discectomy. Both procedures were done on a "micro" basis, meaning very tiny tools. The incision on my back where they entered me was barely the size of a US dime. I was back home within 24 hours of entering the hospital and I was back to work in about 3-4 days. Very simple, very easy.

Now as for whether it worked! I would say that my procedure "worked as expected." And that means two important things: first, you usually need a fair amount of physical therapy (and patience) after the actual surgery. Your body has been "assaulted" to a degree (nerves, flesh and muscles have been cut), and your back is going to be sore and stiff (and possibly prone to spasming) for anywhere from a couple of weeks to several months. Physical therapy helps you snap back. I probably did about 9 months of physical therapy (a bit longer than normal for that kind of surgery) but when it was done, I felt good - pain was gone and I was able to stop the pain medications.

But the second important point is - I only stayed that way (pain-free and medication-free) for about 4 years. Then new maladies started happening (spinal arthritis, which can happen from that kind of surgery). And now, starting around 2017, I've also had a return of the nerve compression (and sciatica) that drove me to the initial surgery. Multiple studies of laminectomies show that this is common - more than half of all people who get them are back in the same situation roughly five years later. But trust me, even 4-5 years of pain relief is worth it, in the big scheme of things.

If you have a good doctor (a neurosurgeon) who you trust and who is experienced, I would say it is worth taking the chance. Your back problems are NOT going to resolve on their own, it's just a question of quality of life at this point - either you take more and stronger pain meds as your condition gets worse or you try to treat it with surgery. I don't regret going the surgery route...