Failed Back Surgery Syndrome

What is failed back syndrome?

Failed back syndrome occurs when your back pain doesn’t go away — or even gets worse — after surgery. As surgery is often the last method used to treat back pain, it can be incredibly frustrating to have unrelenting back pain despite a surgical procedure. 

Unfortunately, surgery isn’t always the most effective approach to eliminate back pain. Spinal disc problems like degenerative disc disease and herniated discs cause significant neurological pain that doesn’t always respond to surgery. 

What causes failed back syndrome?

The exact causes of failed back syndrome aren’t fully understood. However, many factors contribute to your chances of this type of chronic back pain. 

For example, damaged discs can affect your peripheral nerves. While a surgeon can repair or replace a disc or perform kyphoplasty to repair a compressed vertebra, this doesn’t address nerve damage. 

In other cases, you might have multiple injuries that could cause back pain, and your surgery might have fixed one issue, but not another. 

How is failed back syndrome treated?

Fortunately, the doctors at Interventional Spine Medicine can offer you hope of a pain-free future. They provide comprehensive exams and diagnostic testing to identify the condition or injury causing your pain. When they understand your pain, they create a customized treatment plan to address your needs.

They often use spinal injections and nerve blocks not only to reduce your pain but also to confirm the location of the nerve damage causing your pain. 

Then, once they’ve found an effective treatment location, they recommend a more permanent solution like a spinal cord stimulator. 

Spinal cord stimulators are implantable devices that deliver a mild electrical current to your spine, blocking the pain signals that have been disrupting your life. Spinal cord stimulators are installed in two phases. Both involve minimally invasive procedures. 

In the first phase, your doctor uses fluoroscopy to guide an electrode into your spine. The wire is attached to a power generator that you wear on your belt or in a pouch. Then, for a week or two, the spinal cord stimulator sends the electrical pulse into your spine.

If phase one successfully stops your pain, you move on to phase two. Your doctor places a permanent electrode into your spine and implants the power generator under the skin on your lower back or upper buttock. They create a small tunnel to house a lead connecting the electrode to the power supply.

If you’re still living with back pain after disc surgery, call Interventional Spine Medicine or make an appointment online today to learn how the doctors can relieve your pain.