Q & A

Recovery depends on the condition being treated, many times recovery is dependent on your rehab. However, generally 6 weeks of significant restrictions followed by 6 more weeks of minor restrictions, and then you will be released to full activity.

Please see our tab on specific injuries to understand your recovery better and what actions are needed to recover quicker.

Muscle function, coordination, stage of healing, and current medication use are all considerations when releasing a patient to drive. Your provider will help make this decision based on your circumstances and health.

Generally speaking, you should not drive for 1-2 weeks after general anesthesia. You should not drive while on narcotics after surgery as a general rule, either. Anything that can impair your reflexes and judgement is a reason to not drive.

No. You must have a driver to take you home.

The surgery schedulers will provide you with information as to what needs to be done before surgery. This includes but not limited to lab work, primary care visits for pre-op clearance, fitting of braces, etc.

It is a good idea to spend the time before surgery optimizing your fitness. Do as much
walking as you can. Decrease medications with the help of your PCP to simplify your post-op routine. Lose weight. Make sure your lungs are clear and healthy. Stop NSAIDs
7 days before surgery as they can cause bleeding (There are some exceptions to the NSAID rule).

No. While it is helpful to be proactive, when we schedule your surgery we will contact your insurance to gain approval. However, it is imperative that you provide us with your most current and updated insurance information.

One of the very best ways is to utilize our patient portal. Just visit the “Patient Portal” tab on the navigation bar of our site and complete the setup steps.

• Visit https://10620.portal.athenahealth.com
• Set up your patient portal account with an email and password
• Make payments, ask questions, and get answers to inquiries

Select patients will be told that they are safe to remove the collar of their back brace once they are in bed. This means your bone and spine are strong enough to tolerate not being braced when you are supported by the pillow and mattress in a flat position.

It depends on your job. If you have an indoor, clerical job you can resume some work duties within 2-3 weeks. If you have a physical or outdoor job it will be 6-12 weeks.

Wow… that’s a great question. Health insurance is a complex game of bait and switch and it is hard to tell. You will have a bill from me, a bill from anesthesia, a bill from the hospital, and a bill from the monitoring people. It is a good idea to check with your insurance company yourself.

There are deductibles, co-pay percentages, and excluded services. It is a deliberately complicated game to make you give up. Fight on. For our part, we will do our best to
keep our bill simple, fair, and timely.

Please refer to our New Patient link under Patient Information tab.

X-Rays are the only studies done with you standing where we can assess what gravity is doing to your spine.

A CT scan shows bone and metal very well but is poor for soft tissue.

An MRI shows soft tissue well but is poor at bone and hardware.

So, depending on what your situation is, you may need all three.

Generally for 6 weeks.

As soon as you are reliably walking 3-4 times a day, you can take them off. For most that should be just a few days.

We use local anesthesia only (Lidocaine) that numbs the skin. We do not use any IV or inhaled/swallowed sedation.

The injection places a powerful steroid and a numbing medication right near the nerve root. The numbing medication helps the nerve membrane to reset and not repeatedly send a pain signal just by habit.

The steroid reduces inflammation around the nerve root. Because inflammation causes pain, it reduces pain. The effect and duration of the medications depends on how severe the inflammation is. Some people get only brief relief that lasts hours or days. Others get relief for months. And for some, it is a cure.

A disc replacement preserves motion while a fusion stops it.

If you have preserved normal motion and your pain is coming from a single removable lesion, an artificial disc is a great idea for you.

If the motion at that segment is already gone, or the motion itself is causing pain, then an artificial disc is a bad idea. We will have a full discussion on this complex subject at your visit.

The more levels you operate on the higher the risk of complications and return to the OR. It is an opinion and philosophical point, but most people are probably better off with partial relief of symptoms and a fast recovery with minimal problems than they are with a huge surgery that has high risk and prolonged recovery. But fixing every bad level is an option to consider.

The nerves that leave your spine and travel to the arm or leg tend to be compressed at the spinal bodies, and less so in the arms and legs. So while the pain is downstream in the extremity where the nerve travels, the compression that causes that pain is upstream where the nerve starts.