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Can an MRI Reveal the Cause of Your Back Pain?

Lower back pain can have many different causes, from a muscle or ligament strain, arthritis, or osteoporosis, to more drastic causes like a tumor impinging on a nerve or a ruptured or herniated disc. 

If you suffer from unrelenting back pain, you aren’t alone. The National Center for Health Statistics estimates that nearly 60% of adults in America are living with chronic back pain. Yet, despite their discomfort, many individuals are hesitant to go to a doctor, fearing that they will have to have risky, expensive, or difficult spine surgery that will take months to recover from. But what if you were able to fix your back problem and alleviate your pain without surgery? 

If you are experiencing intense pain in your back, neck, legs, or arms that you cannot seem to get rid of, you may be suffering from a pinched nerve in your spinal column. When you have this kind of chronic pain, it can make even the simplest tasks difficult or uncomfortable, and sometimes the pain is not relieved even when sitting or laying down. 

At St. Charles Spine Institute, our goal is to give relief to patients who experience back pain and debility – from whatever cause – in the most effective manner possible. This effort means that we look at the vast array of different spinal problems that our patients present, and try to address their conditions with the best treatments available. 

Recently, Los Robles Health System announced the acquisition of a Globus Excelsius GPS Robotic Navigation System, somewhat lightheartedly referred to as the “GloBot”, that will aid surgeons in conducting spinal surgery. As noted in the Thousand Oaks Acorn, Dr. Erik Spayde, orthopedic spine surgeon at the St. Charles Spine Institute and Chief of Spinal Surgery at the Los Robles Regional Medical Center, was the lead surgeon for the first surgery performed on this new platform at Los Robles. 

When you suffer from lower back pain, it can be completely debilitating. Even non-strenuous activities like walking or driving a car can become unbearable if undertaken for extended lengths of time, and even simple tasks can cause severe pain. 

When you are suffering from unrelenting back pain, you may feel as if you are willing to do anything to alleviate your pain, even if it means having back surgery. And when people think of back surgery, they often envision a spinal fusion–that is, a surgical procedure in which damaged portions of the spinal column are removed, and two or more vertebrae are treated so that they ultimately fuse together into one unit. However with current technology spinal fusions don’t have the same recovery as they used to, and most people are able to return to a high level of activity. 

The word arthroplasty means “artificial disc replacement,” or more specifically, the surgical reconstruction or replacement of a joint. When removing a damaged spinal disc and replacing it with a man-made prosthetic disc, that could be classified as cervical or lumbar arthroplasty. Read on to learn more about these procedures.

Chronic back problems and discomfort can negatively impact your quality of life and make completing even everyday tasks difficult and painful. Extreme lateral lumbar interbody fusion, or XLIF®, is a promising solution for individuals who experience lower back and leg pain that is the result of certain types of spinal degeneration or deformities. 

Everyone experiences back pain now and then, but if you have back pain in the lower lumbar region that becomes so severe and persistent that it prevents you from being able to comfortably carry out even normal daily activities, you may have a serious spinal problem in need of medical attention

If you are unable to obtain relief from your back pain by utilizing traditional therapies or conservative approaches such as exercise, rest, or pain medication, you may need surgical intervention. At St. Charles Spine Institute, we offer a spinal surgical procedure that takes a new approach to surgical remedies for back pain and spinal stability. It is called dynamic spine stabilization, and it may be what you need to obtain long-term pain relief and to regain your enjoyment of life.

Cervical arthroplasty, also called artificial disc replacement, is a surgical procedure designed to remove a herniated or otherwise damaged disc in the neck and insert an artificial implant to replace it. At St. Charles Spine Institute in Thousand Oaks, California, we perform this minimally invasive surgery to help patients to alleviate chronic neck pain. Unlike fusion, this procedure doesn’t limit the range of motion in the joint. What’s more, the recovery time is usually fast, and the patient’s risk of developing herniations in adjacent discs is very low.

If you have ever experienced severe lower back pain, you know it can render you incapable of getting through a normal day, and keep you from carrying out even basic activities like driving a car, taking a walk, sitting down for a meal, or even relaxing on the sofa.

Recovering from many types of spine surgery, particularly surgeries that use minimally invasive techniques, can take anywhere from four to six weeks depending upon a number of factors. However, there is a universal truth to spine surgery recovery: your recovery will go more smoothly and be more complete if you engage in a regular regimen of safely exercising your back.

Stem cell therapy is a form of regenerative medicine that uses stem cells to heal the body. If you’ve been suffering from pain as a result of the aging process or an injury, we can harness and magnify your body’s own healing potential to repair the damage and possibly even avoid surgical intervention.

Have you been diagnosed with an osteoporosis-caused fracture? If so, you may need vertebral augmentation to ease your back pain. There are several types of vertebral augmentation, but kyphoplasty is usually preferred due to its minimally invasive nature and effective results. If you’re curious about the ins and outs of this procedure, keep reading to learn more about what it is and who is a good candidate.

Are you experiencing spinal pain and are unsure if artificial disc replacement could be the solution? Use this guide to help you understand the ins and outs of this cutting-edge procedure.

When the vertebrae in your cervical spine have begun to deteriorate, your doctor might recommend a specialized cervical fusion procedure to repair the damage and prevent further pain. Many people worry that fusing the vertebrae together will limit their mobility and prevent them from moving their neck and head normally after the surgery, but that is not normally the case. Here’s what you need to know about fusion surgery and mobility.

When treating spinal disorders, many patients may feel as if their only options are invasive and recovery-intensive procedures or surgeries. However, a modern technique called XLIF, which stands for Extreme Lateral Interbody Fusion, has revolutionized the treatment of back and leg pain caused by degenerative disc disease. At St. Charles Spine Institute in Thousand Oaks, CA, patients can experience relief from painful conditions through this safe and effective treatment.

Do you have nerve root compression causing extreme sciatica? If so, you may be a good candidate for lumbar disc microsurgery at St. Charles Spine Institute in Thousand Oaks, CA. Due to the minimally invasive technique we use to perform this procedure, the spine surgery recovery process is much easier than recovery from other spine procedures. Here’s what you need to know about the recovery process.