Minimally Invasive

With Awake Spinal Fusion, we begin with a minimally invasive procedure.

Minimally invasive spine surgery involves making a small incision (approximately one – two inches) in the skin.  This means that the incision in your skin is considerably smaller than traditional spine surgery. The benefits of minimally invasive spine surgery are faster healing times, greatly reduced postoperative pain, less muscle injury, and a better cosmetic outcome compared to the traditional spinal fusion procedure.

With Awake Spinal Fusion, we can avoid the use of general anesthesia, relying instead on highly effective regional anesthetic techniques.

The Benefits

Since we don’t use general anesthesia, Awake Spinal Fusion eliminates a number of disadvantages associated with traditional spine surgery. With the Awake Spinal Fusion procedure, you’ll experience:

• Quicker overall recovery
• Less nausea during the recovery period
• Better pain control
• Earlier recovery of bowel function
• Easier breathing resulting from better pain control
• Easier participation in physical therapy

Awake Spinal Fusion allows patients to awaken sooner with significantly fewer side effects. In most cases, patients have recovered sufficiently to ambulate a few hours after surgery.