Feeling 30 Again.

A Patient’s Experience with the Lumbar Microdiscectomy Procedure

In this video, we discuss a patient who suffered from a large disc herniation in his low back that pinched a nerve causing severe pain and numbness down his leg. After failing physical therapy and epidural steroid injections, we decided to move forward with the microdiscectomy procedure.

I discuss the microdiscectomy procedure in great detail in my book The Spine Encyclopedia, but in brief, it is an outpatient procedure done through a 1-2 inch incision in the skin. We make a small opening in the spine to remove the disc herniation. Although success is not 100% in all cases, many patients note immediate and long term relief of their back and sciatic pain. It is definitely one of my favorite procedures because its very effective, with only a short recovery time.