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When patients with osteoporosis need bigger surgery, it also has to be taken into account because if patients with osteoporosis need some type of spine implant, it very commonly needs supplemental fixation or additional consideration by an experienced surgeon to make sure that the spine implants hold properly in the soft bone.

A lot of times patients come to me saying that they’ve had, say, a botched surgery with another surgeon and they’re very scared of another surgery, and that’s very reasonable. The important thing that I found is to be patient with that, that individual. Explain to ’em as best you can, what’s going on, the risk and benefits of proceeding forward.

One of the things I pull upon is what I would do for myself or a loved one in the same situation, and that’s often how we come to a decision to perform more surgery or not with a patient.

Osteoporosis is just the word that means softening of the bones. The risk in the spine involves spontaneous compression fractures or spine fractures that occur without any kind of incident or, spine fractures that occur with very minor incidents, such as a mild fall.

Arthritis of the spine is something that’s very common. In fact, it’s odd not to see some type of arthritis in the spine of people as they get over the age of 40. It has to be taken in consideration to somebody with a spine problem, whether it’s pain or dysfunction in terms of how much it’s contributing and how it should be addressed at the time of surgery.

A lot of times, some of it’s inconsequential or there, and doesn’t need to be addressed. Sometimes the arthritis itself can be the problem. It needs to be addressed.

The spinal infections can be a serious problem. Often they require surgical intervention, sometimes even emergent surgical intervention. Often they require more than one surgery. They typically require a combined team approach with the surgeon, the internal medicine doctor, and the infectious disease doctor to try and get rid of the infection.

It’s also not uncommon for them to need surgery later once the infection clears to reconstruct the spine.