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By Mayo Clinic staff
During diskectomy
Surgeons usually perform diskectomy using general anesthesia, so you're unconscious during the procedure. The anesthesiologist or anesthetist gives you an anesthetic medication as a gas — to breathe through a mask — or injects a liquid medication into a vein.
The surgical team monitors your heart rate, blood pressure and blood oxygen throughout the procedure with a blood pressure cuff on your arm and heart-monitor leads attached to your chest. After you're unconscious:
- The surgeon makes an incision over the herniated disk and moves the back muscles away from the spine as much as possible. Small amounts of bone and ligaments may be removed (laminectomy) to gain access to the herniated disk.
- Small instruments are used to remove the herniated portion of the disk and any pieces that have broken loose. Ideally, just the fragment of disk that is pinching the nerve is removed, relieving the pressure but leaving most of the disk intact.
- In some cases, a small part of the spine called the facet joint may also need to be removed (partial facetectomy) if it's compressing a nerve.
- The surgeon closes the incision using staples or stitches.
A microdiskectomy is similar to a standard diskectomy, except during microdiskectomy, the surgeon uses a surgical microscope or magnifying lens to allow a smaller incision in the skin, muscles and bone overlying the herniated disk.
After diskectomy
After surgery, you're moved to a recovery room where the health care team watches for complications from the surgery and anesthesia. Your doctor may prescribe medication to relieve pain at the incision site. Diskectomy may not deliver immediate relief of herniated disk symptoms, but as you recover, improvement should become apparent.
You may go home the same day you have surgery, although in some cases a hospital stay of one to three days may be necessary following diskectomy.
Limit activities involving lifting, bending and stooping for three weeks after diskectomy. You may also need to avoid long car rides for at least four to six weeks.
Depending on the amount of lifting, walking and sitting your job involves, you likely will be able to return to work within two to six weeks.
- Open discectomy. North American Spine Society. http://www.spine.org/Documents/open_discectomy_2006.pdf. Accessed May 19, 2009.
- Chou R. Subacute and chronic low back pain: Surgical treatment. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed May 19, 2009.
- Berger MS. Neurosurgery and surgery of the pituitary. In: Doherty GM, et al. Current Surgical Diagnosis & Treatment. 12th ed. New York, N.Y.: McGraw-Hill Companies; 2006. http://www.accessmedicine.com/content.aspx?aID=2068298. Accessed May 19, 2009.
- Katayama Y, et al. Comparison of surgical outcomes between macro discectomy and micro discectomy for lumbar disc herniation: A prospective randomized study with surgery performed by the same spine surgeon. Journal of Spinal Disorders & Techniques. 2006;19:344.
- Back pain. National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases. http://www.niams.nih.gov/Health_Info/Back_Pain/default.asp. Accessed May 19, 2009.
- Williams KD, et al. Lower back pain and disorders of intervertebral disks. In: Canale ST, et al. Campbell's Operative Orthopedics. 11th ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Mosby Elsevier; 2008.
