Minimally Invasive Spine Treatments

Spine Surgeons in Minnesota

Your spine is formed and equipped to perform many essential activities. These include bearing the weight of the body, balancing and supporting the head, anchoring your ribs and legs, protecting the spinal cord, and more.

Back pain can have a domino effect on everything in your life. That’s because it’s hard to focus on much else when your back hurts and you’re always uncomfortable and cannot find relief. Your overall health may suffer because of avoiding activities that could intensify your pain, even simple activities like mowing the lawn or walking your dog.

Dealing with Back Pain

Your spine is strong and resilient, just like you. In learning about your condition, you’ve already taken an important first step toward relieving your pain. Keep reading. Ask questions. Take notes. Make sure you understand all your options. Let your doctor know if what you’ve tried already hasn’t worked, and insist that together, you keep looking for a solution. Most importantly, take advantage of the support systems around you—family, friends, caregivers, neighbors, community services, and even insurance company or Medicare representatives. You might be surprised.

Treatments We Offer for Spinal Conditions

We treat spinal conditions with conservative, nonsurgical therapies whenever possible and only resort to surgery when absolutely necessary to alleviate pain, correct a deformity, or halt the progression of a degenerative spinal disorder.

Some of the procedures we offer include:

• Minimally Invasive Spinal Surgery (MISS): Inspired Spine minimally invasive spinal surgery is a significant advancement in the surgical treatment of chronic back pain. It offers patients a unique combination of benefits you won’t find anywhere else. Some of these benefits include shorter procedures, faster recovery, a more favorable cosmetic outcome, and no need for a lengthy hospital stay. Unlike most other back surgeries, even other so-called Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS), we do not make a large incision in your back to open the diseased area of your spine to full view. Instead, our advanced technology uses a small portal (just 10 millimeters or smaller than a dime) that leaves the muscles and healthy supporting structures of your back intact. Most of our surgery patients are back home within 24 hours of the surgery.
• Oblique Lateral Lumbar Interbody Fusion (OLLIF): This is one of the most innovative back surgeries available to treat conditions that affect the lower back. The OLLIF is one of Inspired Spine’s signature advanced minimally invasive spinal surgery procedures – a revolutionary advancement in minimally invasive spine surgery that our surgeons have perfected with years of research and practice. For patients considering lumbar fusion, the OLLIF offers significant advantages in the ease and speed of recovery. And unlike most other spinal fusion approaches, the OLLIF procedure can be used to treat all lumbar levels of the spine effectively.
• Anterior Cervical Discectomy and Fusion (ACDF): This surgical procedure involves 2 parts: discectomy and fusion, and it is performed on the front (anterior) of the neck, a region called the cervical spine. The goal of ACDF is to decompress the nerve root or spinal cord for relief from pain, pressure, and inflammation.
• Direct Thoracic Interbody Fusion (MIS-DTIF): This procedure is an updated version of other traditional open surgeries that treat mid-back pain. It is just as effective in providing spinal pain relief, but with a fraction of the risk and healing time. MIS-DTIF helps patients with mid-back problems, and it is an excellent option for patients with degenerative disc disease or herniated discs. Inspired Spine is the only provider performing this procedure in the United States
• Direct Lateral Interbody Fusion (MIS-DLIF): This minimally invasive spinal surgery offers a better alternative to traditional, open methods. The surgical team approaches the spine from the side (laterally) and utilizes fluoroscopic surgical techniques that let them operate in hard-to-reach areas such as the bottom of the spine and the sacrum. If you have suffered from lower back or leg pain for at least 6 months and conservative methods provide no relief, you may be a candidate for MIS-DLIF.
• Facet Fusion: Patients who have facet joint syndrome or spinal arthritis may benefit from facet fusion, a surgical option available to patients with chronic back pain. With injury, aging, or damage, these joints can become painful and inflamed, particularly when loss of lubrication creates too much friction. The procedure fuses together the vertebrae in the symptomatic area, and by eliminating joint movement, it stops the pain.
• Sacroiliac (SI) Joint Fusion: In SI Joint Fusion, bone growth over the sacroiliac joint is initiated by using a titanium rod or compression screws and/or with a bone graft. The procedure takes about 30 to 40 minutes to complete, and only uses small incisions less than 1-inch long. By contrast, traditional SI joint fusion surgery involves a 7 to 8-inch long incision and cuts through healthy muscle and tissue and requires a lengthy hospital stay, recovery time, and less favorable cosmetic outcome. Studies have shown that up to 23% of all chronic back pain is caused by Sacroiliac joint dysfunction, but SI joint problems can often be overlooked during a diagnosis if testing is not included in the original screening. Testing for SI joint dysfunction is always included in Inspired Spine’s initial protocol for pain screening.
• Microdiscectomy: Also called microdecompression, this minimally invasive spinal surgery provides nerve compression caused by disc herniation, spinal stenosis, and degenerative disc disease. Microdiscectomy removes a part of the disc that presses on the spinal nerve and removes disc fragments that have broken away from the disc. Most patients are up and walking within 24 hours of microdiscectomy surgery and go home the following day. At least 85% of people who have undergone microdiscectomy say they are very satisfied with the surgical outcome.
• Artificial Disc Replacement: This new, innovative surgical procedure replaces painful, worn-out spinal discs with a plastic and/or metal prosthesis. ADR is currently approved by the FDA to replace discs in the lower back (lumbar region) for patients who have one-level degenerative disc disease. It is not intended for patients who suffer from spinal instability, nerve compression, or spinal fractures. More than 97% of patients from a recent clinical study reported lasting, significant pain relief following ADR surgery.
• Laminotomy: This minimally invasive spinal procedure partially removes the lamina (the back portion of the spinal vertebrae) to decompress the spinal cord or nerves. The purpose of laminotomy is to treat spinal stenosis. With this procedure, the surgeon removes herniated disc material, bone spurs, damaged lamina, tumors, and thickened ligaments that press on spinal nerves in the spinal canal.
• Laminoplasty: Through cervical laminoplasty, your spinal surgeon can help alleviate spinal cord pressure in the neck and restore neurological function. The most common cause of cervical spinal cord compression is spinal arthritis that may also present with bone spurs or herniated discs. Other conditions may also pinch the spinal cord in the neck, such as tumors, fractures, or OPLL.

Questions? Call (952) 225-5266 or contact Inspired Spine today to speak with one of our Patient Care Coordinators about arranging a consultation to discuss our conservative treatment path and the surgical procedures we offer.