01
Do your symptoms match your imaging?
Findings matter most when they help explain what you feel.
A physician-guided educational tool
Should I Consider
Spine Surgery?
Understand the factors doctors consider before recommending spine surgery.
Spine surgery is rarely a simple yes-or-no decision. This guide will walk you through several of the same factors physicians consider when deciding whether surgery may be helpful.
Takes about 5–8 minutes. Your answers stay in this browser and are not sent anywhere.
02
Where are your symptoms?
Location and symptom type shape what an operation is intended to improve.
03
Have nonsurgical treatments been tried?
Prior care and its results are part of the whole picture.
04
Is your health optimized for surgery?
Overall health affects risk, healing, and recovery.
Physician Insight
Patient selection is one of the most important parts of achieving a good surgical outcome.
This tool provides general educational information and does not determine whether you are a candidate for spine surgery. Only a qualified healthcare professional who evaluates your individual condition can make that determination.
Optional reference
Spine Surgery Basics
A few terms you may hear when talking with your doctor. These definitions are intentionally brief.
Nerve compression
Crowding around a nerve
Pressure or crowding around a nerve, often from narrowing, a disc problem, or another change in anatomy. It may cause pain, weakness, numbness, or tingling along the path that nerve serves. Which symptoms appear depends on which nerve is affected.
Spinal stenosis
The word for narrowing
A medical term for narrowing — usually of the spinal canal or of the openings where nerves exit the spine. Narrowing can leave less room for the spinal cord or a nerve. Narrowing seen on a scan does not always cause symptoms.
Decompression
The goal, not one technique
Surgery intended to create more space for compressed nerves or the spinal cord. It describes the goal of the operation rather than one single technique. It is generally aimed at nerve-related symptoms.
Laminectomy
One way to decompress
A type of decompression in which the lamina — part of the bone at the back of a vertebra — is removed. Taking that bone away can create more room for the spinal cord or nerves. How much is removed depends on where the crowding is.
Fusion
Joining bones for stability
An operation that joins two or more vertebrae so they heal into one solid segment. It is used in selected situations where stability or alignment is a concern. Because it depends on bone healing, factors such as nicotine use, nutrition, diabetes and obesity matter — obesity can place added load on the spine and may make healing, wound care and recovery more difficult.