Month: December 2025

Physical therapy is something I very commonly employ in my patients, both before surgery and after surgery. The goal before surgery is of course, to get them better without them needing surgery. The goal after surgery is to help them recover.

I use lasers very typically in spinal surgery, usually to help minimize the soft tissue involvement when I’m doing microdiscectomy. To be more specific when patients have a disc pressing on the nerve, I use the laser to relieve that pressure very precisely by melting away the disc with the laser and it’s much less tissue dissection and I think makes for a better outcome and better recovery.

Much of the surgery that I perform would be considered minor surgery where patients go home the same day. The important thing to, to remember for my patients is for them to know that I know to them no surgery is minor. Every surgery is a big deal, even though we may consider it minor as a procedure, all surgery is major to the patient.

Minimally invasive versus a more traditional open surgery as to which is better. Typically, patient dependent. Most surgery today that’s performed would be considered minimally invasive compared to the surgery 30 years ago. Incisions have just gotten smaller no matter what’s done often in the lumbar spine and in between or hybrid approach can be taken where the surgeon uses a very small incision that wouldn’t necessarily be considered minimally invasive.

But allows adequate visualization of everything to get the job done properly without leaving a large incision. And sometimes this sort of in-between approach is the best of both worlds, depending upon the patient.