Failed Back Surgery Syndrome

Diagnosis And Treatment

Having back surgery is very common and is usually preceded by careful diagnosis and proper surgery planning.

Sadly, not all back pain surgery goes as anticipated. If you are in pain after back surgery and suffering from severe chronic pain, you may be experiencing failed back surgery syndrome (FBSS). It’s not a simple task to identify the sources of your back pain, and a misdiagnosis of your condition can often lead to FBSS.

At Desert Institute for Spine Care in Arizona, our goal is to accurately diagnose the specific source of your painful spinal symptoms before developing a personalized treatment approach. Our Personal Pain Mapping techniques help us to identify the pain sources accurately. Often there may be more than one source causing the pain in your spine. If you are struggling with FBSS, you can count on us to carefully diagnose, treat, and select the right surgical procedure to address your back pain.

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What Causes Failed Back Surgery Syndrome?

Failed back surgery often has little to do with the talents or experience of the spine surgeon. Instead, it has more to do with the diagnosis process. Because back pain is not as easy to pinpoint as other sources of pain, spinal surgeries are less predictable in their ability to completely relieve symptoms, and FBSS can occur as a result.

Failed back surgery syndrome can be due to one of many causes, including:

• Inaccurate diagnosis of back pain
• Surgery performed on wrong area of the spine
• Scar tissue formation at incision site
• Nerve damage from surgery
• Failure to remove all of the damaged disc, resulting in continued pinched nerve
• Spinal fusion failure
• Bone spurs, missed disc fragments or reherniation of disc, resulting in continued pinched nerve
• Lateral recess stenosis, or failure to decompress the area around the exiting nerve
• Adjacent segment disease, or pain that develops in the area above or below the surgical site

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