Spine surgeon asks himself: Is it possible to heal the spine without the use of surgery?

As you may know, I am a surgeon and I spend most of my time performing reconstructive and minimally invasive surgical treatments to help heal back problems. But lately I have been asking myself: it is possible to stop the degenerative process in the spine before it gets to the point of requiring surgery?

Although I love fixing back problems with surgery, I also want to make sure I can offer my patients every modern treatment available outside of the OR. That’s why I’m so excited to offer regenerative treatments in my clinics.

Regenerative medicine, commonly used for other areas in orthopedics to slow joint degeneration, is now finally available in the spine! These include treatments such as platelet rich plasma (PRP) and bone marrow aspirate concentrate (BMAC).

In this post, I highlight one of my patients who benefited from regenerative therapy in the form of platelet rich plasma (PRP). She underwent a PRP treatment involving the concentration of whole blood drawn from a vein to isolate the platelets to help repair damaged tissue in the spine. She had some early onset arthritis of the spine causing back pain but wasn’t ready to have surgical treatment. Before regenerative medicine all we would be able to offer a patient like this was steroid injections. She was in great shape otherwise and so was a perfect candidate for PRP injection. PRP doesn’t provide an immediate relief like a steroid injection does, but it is much longer lasting and offers the possibility of repairing tissue—unlike steroids.

After ten days she was feeling better and the effects have only continued to improve over the course of two months after treatment. Although steroids are effective in treating pain, rarely do we get long lasting effects like this. Regenerative medicine is not for everyone, so please check with your doctor to see if it is right for you.

This is just the beginning for our approach to regenerative medicine in the spine at my clinic. Stay tuned for more educational content forthcoming from our Marin county based clinic in Novato!