“My mother has to have a laminectomy. What is that exactly?”
My mom's orthopedic surgeon says she needs a laminectomy to relieve the terrible back pain she's been having. What exactly is this procedure?
9 Answers
Minor procedure to open a passage for the exiting nerve by removing a small amount of bone
Spinal surgery, which involves removing bone and other tissue to relieve pressure on the nerves, often from a disc herniation or protrusion.
Good luck,
Dr. Louden
Good luck,
Dr. Louden
It’s a procedure in which the surgeon removes the bone which envelopes the nerves. This takes the pressure away from the nerves which are compressed and decreases the pain.
Removal of bone from the spine
A laminectomy is a surgical proceedure
A laminectomy is a back procedure in which a small portion of one of the back bones called the lamina is removed to gain access to remove disc material which has herniated and presses on a nerve causing sciatica. Another type of laminectomy usually performed on older individuals is called a decompressive laminectomy in which most of the lamina is removed to relieve pressure on the nerve sac. If most of the lamina needs removal a spine fusion may also need to be done to compensate for the removed bone.
It’s basically to remove spurs and increase the space for her spinal cord where there is narrowing due to the spur (lamina).
Spinal stenosis usually develops because of arthritis because of arthritis in your spine. As you develop arthritis in your spine, you build up spurs, which can encroach on your spinal cord. This can cause stenosis or "squeezing" down the space of the spinal cord, which can cause terrible back pain. When conservative treatment does not help, a laminectomy can be performed. This is removal of some bone of the spine to create more space for the spinal cord.
A laminectomy is the removal of a portion of the spine bone (vertebra). In older people, it is used to decompress the nerves in the spine to relieve pressure for something called spinal stenosis. For people with a herniated disc, it allows access to that herniation. In the case of stenosis, the spine is usually fused with hardware.
