Life After Spinal Surgery

Life after spine surgery actually begins in the weeks before admission. This is when you'll meet with the Spinal Care Coordinator who helps you with the preparations you and your family need to make in adapting your home to recover from spine surgery.

Following surgery your surgeon will want to see you to make sure all is well, but for the most part you’ll be busy getting back to a normal lifestyle.

We can’t guarantee that you’ll never feel pain again or that your spine will entirely regain its youthful flexibility. If you’re like the vast majority of spinal surgery patients, however, you'll feel a marked decrease in pain. Within a few short weeks you’ll gradually build up to numerous activities including:

• Walking farther
• Working with full concentration, with pain no longer an issue
• Gardening
• Swimming and golfing
• Bike riding
• Playing tennis

Taking Charge: What Comes Next

Now that you’ve had a short course in spine surgery and what will be involved before and after the next step depends on how far you’ve been to this point. Your primary care doctor is a good place to start. Or, you may want to take advantage of the many classes and seminars available through AAMC, some of which focus directly on the subjects of backs and pain.

The important point is to recognize that there is a wide range of options available to you--options that let you, not the pain, take charge of your life.

• Back Pain Relief Elusive: More Therapy Is Not Helping

• Safe Landing
• Cause and Effect
• Back on Track
• Uniformly First Rate
• The Disc Docs
• Back or Joint Pain? We Can Help.
• Targeting the Back
• You Haven’t Got Time For The Pain
• Minimally Invasive Spinal Surgery Offers Quick Relief
• No Bones About It: Staying a Step Ahead of Osteoporosis
• Back in the Swing
• AAMC Neurosurgeon Conducts FDA Trials for Neck Pain
• Implantable Devices Offer Hope for Chronic Pain Patients
• Laparoscopic First at AAMC
• AAMC's Spine Center Specializes in Relief

• Medium-Firm Mattress Works Best For The Back