People from all over the world experience some form of back pain at one point in their lives. In most cases, the pain is acute which means that such back pain only lasts four to six weeks at most. In a number of cases, however, patients have been known to encounter chronic back pain. In such cases, the pain has been known to last for six months or more. This can make dealing with back pain quite unbearable.

Unless there are extreme conditions, most doctors will try a number of non-invasive for a period of weeks or even months before indicating surgery. However, if these treatment methods fail or the pain and/or impairment are getting progressively worse, then surgery may be warranted. Two surgical methods often come up as permanent solutions to chronic back pain: traditional spine surgery and laser spine surgery.

Typically, traditional spine surgery involves long incisions in the back through which the surgeon can pull aside muscle tissues. In this way, the surgeon is able to take a good look at the problem and repair it successfully. Laser spine surgery, on the other hand, involves a small incision that often varies in size from less than inch to a couple of inches long. Through the incision, the surgeon is able to use lasers to remove the sources of nerve sensitivity and pain. This is done by lasering off the nerve ends as well as reducing the size of discs that lie between the backbone. This helps relieve the stress that is causing the patient’s pain and is medically referred to as ablation.

In some cases, laser spine surgery may also involve a laminotomy. A Laminotomy involves the removal of some tissue/contents of a disc and decompressing it. This helps to reduce the pressure exerted on the spine as well as the around tissues. It should be noted that the lasers, in this case, are used to burn off the contents of the disc rather than typically cutting them away.

It is common to confuse laser spine surgery with minimally obtrusive spinal surgery. While both use rather small cuts when compared to traditional spine surgery, it should be noted that minimally intrusive spinal surgery does not use lasers. This type of spinal surgery uses a tiny endoscope which contains a camera to look at the damaged area and specific devices to perform the surgery.

While relatively new, laser spine surgery has been shown to be efficient in treating a number of spinal problems including bone spurs, herniated discs and spinal stenosis. The latter refers to the narrowing of the space around the spinal column which results in the development of excess pressure on the same. While traditional spine surgery is still generally used and advised by a number of medical experts, laser surgery has a number of benefits over the former procedure. These include a much faster healing time, less chance of problems and in most cases less costly.