Laminectomy for Sciatica

Laminectomy for sciatica is truly traditional spinal surgery in its purest form. Besides spinal fusion, there are few fully open procedures which create so much damage to the healthy spinal tissues and often leave the patient with a permanent functional disability.

What is Laminectomy for Sciatica?

This operation can be performed using a single large surgical incision or several smaller incisions (commonly called a hemilaminectomy – a minimally invasive form of the procedure). The surgeon will dissect the levels of musculature (sometimes move them aside in minimally invasive versions) and access the spine directly. Once the spine is visualized, the surgeon will remove sections of bone called lamina. The purpose of this procedure is too enlarge the foraminal openings through which the nerve roots leave the spine. Sometimes, bone spur growth is removed (for osteoarthritis patients) and other times the facet joints are trimmed to eliminate suspected causes of pain (facet joint syndrome in particular). This surgical technique is commonly performed in conjunction with a discectomy, if the symptomatic causation is disc related.

Laminectomy for Sciatica Concerns

The full open version of this procedure is brutal on the poor patient and takes significant recovery time to regain lost functionality. Many post operative patients continue to have their original pain (a good indication of misdiagnosis) and many also have additional symptoms due to the surgery itself. Enduring such a torturous procedure and still having pain seems a fate worse than death, but it is an unfortunate reality for many people who’s hopes for a recovery were dashed by the poor curative results offered by this “old school” sciatica operation.

My Experience with Laminectomy for Sciatica

This procedure is used to treat a variety of spinal pain syndromes most commonly linked to foraminal stenosis. The actual suspected source of pain might be a herniated disc, bone spur or other causation, but the treatment is almost cookie cutter, regardless…

I grew up looking at the 6 inch scar on my mother’s lower back, from her laminectomy in the 1960’s. She had her operation before I was born and spoke of it often. Her doctor performed this surgery to correct a herniated disc in her lower back, ironically one of the same that I have now (L4/L5 and L5/S1 for me). Mom never got fully better and spoke of her back pain almost daily. She could not do so many things in life, but luckily found solace in swimming, her great love. The scar was frightening, but the fact that it did not cure her pain was even scarier. She continued to suffer with back pain which came and went throughout her life and remained in medical and chiropractic treatment for many years. Now mom is gone, but my memories of her brave struggle with back pain (hip replacements and finally cancer, as well) are alive and vivid.

Laminectomy is rarely necessary, except in extremely dire cases of osteoarthritic growth. In my experience, it often does more harm than good. My advice would be to consider another option if this procedure is suggested to you. There are many other sciatica treatment modalities which might offer better results and might not even entail surgical intervention.

Laminectomy for Sciatica to Sciatica Home
12/18/08 Revised 12/16/09