Spine Treatments and Surgery

While we understand that needing to see a spine surgeon can be scary, it doesn't have to be. We aim to treat all conditions with nonsurgical methods first and only recommend surgery when we believe it to be the most effective treatment for your needs. 

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The most common nonsurgical treatments we recommend include:

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• Physical therapy: Physical therapists offer a variety of treatment methods that help to decrease pain, improve overall mobility, and increase your function and your quality of life. Together, your physical therapist will take your considerations in mind to combine specific exercises and postural corrections with joint or soft tissue mobilization, manual therapies or other techniques to get you back on your feet.

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• Medications: There are many available medications on the market that are available both over the counter and through prescriptions that are safe and effective for taking care of pain related to the spine. Depending on your symptoms, we may prescribe medications to reduce inflammation, relax your muscles and decrease pain.

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• Steroid injections: We inject a corticosteroid medication directly into an affected joint to decrease inflammation and relieve pain. Steroid injections may effectively treat arthritis, bursitis and back pain.

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• Epidural injections: For some conditions, we may refer you to a specialist that can inject anti-inflammatory medicine into the epidural space, or the area directly outside the sac of fluid surrounding your spinal cord. This medication helps reduce inflammation and relieve back pain.

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• Facet joint injections: For other conditions, we may refer you to a specialist that inject an anesthetic, with or without a medication, into your facet joints, or the joints between your spinal bones (vertebrae). Injecting the facet joints allow you to move your back and neck without stiffness and help to provide spine stability.

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• Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy: As one of our favorite nonoperative treatment methods, we inject injured or damaged tissue with a concentration of your own platelets. The injection helps to stimulate faster healing of injured joints, muscles, ligaments or tendons.

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• Radiofrequency ablation: We use radiofrequency energy to apply heat to specific pain-causing nerves. The heat strategically destroys or deadens the nerve so it doesn’t send pain signals. Our specialists perform the Intracept procedure, an innovative approach that targets the main nerve running through your spine (basivertebral nerve) with radiofrequency energy.

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• Trigger point injections: We may inject an anesthetic, with or without another medication, into painful knots called trigger points. Trigger point injections are often beneficial for myofascial pain, which affects your muscles and the connective tissue around your muscles (fascia).