Imagine Having a Marble Stuck in Your Back

A Patient Recounts her Experience with the Microdiscectomy Procedure.

This patient had a disc herniation the size of a marble compressing part of her sciatic nerve. It is one of the most painful conditions that I come across and I discuss it fully in The Spine Encyclopedia. She was so debilitated that even walking was impossible for her. How can a person be in so much pain you may wonder?

The answer is that nerve compression is right at the source of your central nervous system, and any pain experienced here is 100 times more intense than other extremity musculoskeletal pain. Learning about how pain works can be helpful to understand this concept.

We treated her with a microdiscectomy, a minimally invasive procedure to free the nerve from the entrapment and she fully recovered.

I am a board certified spine surgeon practicing in Marin, Novato, Sonoma, Mendocino and San Francisco and I treat a wide range of back and neck conditions in my spinal clinic. I am an expert in minimally invasive, reconstructive and motion preserving procedures. I am also a writer and artist, and I treat every surgery with the care required to paint a masterpiece.