Back pain in the neck can become symptom of many health problem. Starting from a simple back muscle problem, osteoporosis, or in a rather often case a herniated spinal disc which press your spinal cords. It result in the swollen of area near it and can cause a really great deal of pain if not treated properly. A discectomy or often called open discectomy is a procedure to remove herniated spinal discs that press the nerve roots or even reach up to spinal cords. One of the option if your doctors choose discectomy is by posterior cervical discectomy and fusion.
The neck pain that you felt is happen on the area that called cervical. Cervical itself represent a region in the spinal bones. In the human neck, there are 7 verterbral bodies which is mark from C1 to C7.
Discectomy or removal of spinal disc which located in the neck or usually called cervical disc is needed when the disc got ruptured. The ruptured disc will later leaked out of the spine and pressed the nerve root and spinal cord. It will cause pain, that’s why you need to get posterior cervical discectomy and fusion.
Fusion is a procedure that is done after dicectomy. After the removal of the cervical discs, there are gaps that is formed between the spines. This gap if not treated will result in another complication and can cause pain and instability.
A fusion procedure will be done by join or combine the bordering vertebra. The joining process can involve the use of screws and rods to stabilize the spinal bones. Another method also can be used by inserting a small section of patient bones from another part of the body to fill the gap. Just make sure you have consulted your doctor if you want to go through posterior cervical discectomy and fusion.
Some of spine surgeons are like to do the discectomy from behind (posterior) the neck. If the herniated discs are lateral with your nerve root or your spinal cord, your surgeon will be likely to use this approach. The advantage of doing posterior cervical discectomy and fusion is that the cervical disc will be completely removed so that the herniation will not happen in the future.
The spinal bones will also get easily stabilized as the fusion will function as a replacement of the cervical disc. One of the disadvantages of this surgery is that the patient will spend more time in bed rest because of the fusion process.