KETTERING, Oh – About 900,000 people undergo back surgery each year. One of the main problems? Herniated or bulging discs.
In fact, half a million people remove bulges that are pressing on nerves that are causing severe, debilitating pain. For many people, one surgery will lead to another and perhaps, to a spinal fusion.
Now, the FDA has approved a new option to relieve back pain.
When Kirby and Sirius arrived in Amber Dillard’s life, she knew she had her hands full. The playing, the walking, the bending all took their toll.
“It went from being just mildly inconveniencing to I could barely walk,” Dillard painfully recalled.
Dillard’s herniated disc was caused when the soft center of the spinal disc pushed through a tear. Dr. Jamal Taha, a neurosurgeon at Advanced Neurosurgery, Inc., said a discectomy is often used to remove the part of the disc that’s bulging, but it can be kind of tricky.
“If you remove too much of that disc, that increases the chances of back pain after surgery. And if you remove too little, there’s a good chance that the disc can herniate again,” Taha explained.
In fact, 30% to 40% of patients will need a second surgery. But now, a new FDA-approved device, called Barricaid, is helping patients avoid that second surgery.
“It’s a little device where you have a tear and so it goes in that tear. It flips up as a plug, as a mesh and it just plugs it,” Taha said.
A few months out, Dillard’s pain is gone and she is now focused on raising her furry family.
The procedure takes about 45 minutes. Dillard went home the same day.
Studies show that patients who used the Barricaid procedure had an 81% reduction of a second operation. It’s the only FDA-approved technology for reducing re-herniation and re-operation after lumbar discectomy.