Back pain is a common problem, affecting up to 80% of population at some stage in their life. The majority of these patients fear surgery but on the flip side 90% of patients get better without surgery. At Ashutosh Hospital, our team of experts (orthopaedic surgeons, spine surgeons & physiotherapists) believe in comprehensive and safe spine care to all our patients. We help people to get over their back pain with the least invasive method possible.
Spine is a mobile structure and the mobility depends on the disc between the two vertebral bones. Due to wear and tear, the flexibility and water content of the disc decreases and this makes it stiffer. This change and the plethora of events occurring secondary to it fall under the banner of “Degenerative Disc Disease”. It is the root cause of low back pain in majority of the patients.
When it lasts for more than 3 months at a stretch it is labelled as Chronic Back Pain. With the degeneration at core, there are many life-style related problems that aggravate it. These include faulty posture, smoking, obesity and repeated bending-lifting. These life-style issues along with degeneration are responsible for 90% of cases that we see every day. Serious spine problems such as slip-disc, stenosis, infection, fracture or tumours need to be rule out but they contribute to low back pain in a relatively small number of patients. Hence most of the patients get substantial and long lasting pain relief via physical therapy, medical management and injections.
At Ashutosh Hospital, we provide complete and comprehensive spinal care that includes consultation to our spine specialist, physiotherapy, medical management, in-patient rehabilitation, sessions on ergonomics and pain injections all aimed at curing back pain and preventing spinal surgery. Because of our holistic approach we are able to avoid surgery in 90-95% of our patients.
Surgery is only considered when all other options are exhausted with no relief in symptoms. In some cases, surgery is considered early on an emergency basis e.g. patients with leg weakness, difficulty in passing urine or stool, patients with spinal infections, fracture or tumour. In such patients, we ensure that the most minimal invasive and safest surgical strategy is used to treat the patients so that they can walk back home without any complication.