3 Major Benefits of Artificial Disc Replacement

For too long, you’ve been dealing with neck or lower back pain that’s tied to a problem with a disc in your spine. In most cases, the problem boils down to degeneration in your discs, which affects 30% of us by the age of 35 and 90% of us by the age of 60.

As you weigh your treatment options in spine surgery, neurosurgeon Dr. Ali H. Mesiwala and our team want to highlight one in particular — artificial disc replacement — which many of our patients are finding to be a fantastic solution.

In the following, we review three benefits that elevate artificial disc replacement over other spine surgeries like spinal fusion.

1. Better mobility after artificial disc replacement

Under normal circumstances, your intervertebral discs provide critical cushioning, support, and movement along your spine. When you have degenerative disc disease (DDD), your discs lose moisture, become more brittle, and they flatten. As a result, the disc can compress or irritate nearby nerve roots, causing pain, numbness, and tingling that can affect your limbs.

The most common treatment for DDD has been fusion surgery — a procedure in which we remove the disc and set the stage to fuse the two vertebrae together. This approach eliminates that disc and creates one larger vertebra out of two.

While effective, you can lose a good deal of movement in your spine when we fuse two vertebrae together.

With artificial disc replacement, we remove your diseased disc and replace it with an artificial one that acts, for all intents and purposes, like your original disc. This means you won’t lose any mobility in your spine, and it will function much like it did before DDD became an issue.

2. Reduced adjacent disc disease with artificial disc replacement

One of the biggest issues with spinal fusion is adjacent disc disease. When two of your vertebrae are fused together, it places more pressure on the disc segments on either side of the fusion. In other words, there’s a bigger workload for your remaining discs, which can cause them to break down more quickly.

According to one study of cervical and lumbar spinal fusions, adjacent disc disease developed in slightly more than 26% of lumbar patients and nearly 33% of cervical patients.

With artificial disc replacement, we may reduce the rate of  adjacent disc disease and future spine surgeries.

3. Shorter recovery time with artificial disc replacement

After your spinal fusion, it takes some time for the bones to grow together, which can make for a long recovery - sometimes as long as 3 months. This can mean time in a brace which limits mobility, and then additional time in physical therapy to rehabilitate the muscle and improve range of motion/strength. 

Conversely, the recovery period after an artificial disc replacement is much shorter. After we place the disc and remove any bone spurs or fragments that might be irritating your nerves, we suture the area. In the cervical spine the surgery can be done in under an hour and with the lumbar spine under two hours. This surgery can be performed in the outpatient setting and patients typically go home the same day - without the use of a brace. 

You need to take it easy for a few weeks after your surgery and avoid strenuous activity and lifting. This translates to resumption of normal activities within a matter of 2-4 weeks. Additionally we can resume physical therapy for our patients quicker than a traditional fusion. 

As you can see, we’re big believers in artificial disc replacement surgery. Not only do we feel this is a superior solution(for the right patient), we also have a good deal of experience helping patients move forward without pain through artificial disc replacement. Dr. Mesiwala has been on the forefront of utilizing disc replacement (i.e. motion preservation surgery) since its conception and has made it a normal solution in his treatment of spinal conditions. 

He is a leading researcher, and innovator, utilizing his biomedical engineering training, and his years of experience to deliver the solution that is optimal for his patients and their lifestyle. Dr Mesiwala is part of the faculty of training other surgeons on artificial disc replacement and routinely participates in research and development to further the field of motion preservation surgery. 

To explore whether artificial disc replacement surgery is right for you, please contact one of our offices in Newport Beach, Marina del Rey, or Rancho Cucamonga, California, to set up a consultation.