I take care of a lot of tennis players. The twisting of tennis often aggravates the low back. Sometimes you can see associated neck and shoulder problems as well. Those patients typically start with physical therapy and routine medications for treatment, progress to injections, and then ultimately if we have to do surgery, review their surgical options and try and tailor the minimum surgery for them to get them back to doing the things they want to do.
Month: June 2025
Tennis Players and Back Pain Options
June 24, 2025Golfers and Back Pain Options
June 12, 2025
I take care of a lot of golfers with low back pain. Um, options are the same as anybody else. You start with over-the-counter medications, prescription medications if you need to, physical therapy, progress to injections, and then ultimately, if the pain is not relieved or symptoms aren’t relieved, the surgical options are reviewed with the patient.
For golfers specifically, surgical options have to be tailored to that patient. That involves really getting to know the patient, knowing the patient’s goals, really understand that what’s wrong with them, and trying to get them better with the least intervention possible so that they can get back to golfing.
What Should I Expect After Spine Surgery
June 10, 2025
What to expect after spine surgery varies a lot by patient and surgery performed. Generally if it’s outpatient surgery or surgery where you go home the same day, you will have pain, but it should be manageable with pain pills you can take by mouth. Patients that need hospitalization for bigger surgery, obviously have a little bit of a slow recovery and can expect pain in the hospital, which will be managed, either with pain medication by mouth or IV pain medication.
Most patients rehab is part of their recovery from spine surgery and as rehab progresses, patients tend to get more and more back to normal.
The Benefits of Spine Surgery
June 2, 2025
The benefits of spine surgery typically surround restoring quality of life. The vast majority of patients I operate on are because of pain, nothing else. So patients that are suffering in pain from a pinched nerve can really be in bad shape and really have very little quality of life. So the mean benefit of surgery is to relieve some or all of that patient’s pain and get them back to where they need to be.