Surgical Pain Management for Spine and Back Pain

It’s more than “pain management.”

Surgical pain management (SPM) is a comprehensive and long-term pain solution for patients who have had an accurate diagnosis and pain generator identified. Once the pain mapping has identified the source of pain, our surgeons’ treatments are tailored to each patient’s specific needs.

These treatments may, by necessity, still involve nonsurgical methods practiced by interventional pain specialists. Your specific condition may not be conducive to the newly developed surgical pain management techniques.

Rather than just teaching you how to “manage” your pain, this emerging new surgical subspecialty focuses on diagnosing and treating the SOURCE of your pain.

Surgical Pain Management Treatment Options

Surgical Pain Management can include nonsurgical, ultra or least invasive, and minimally invasive surgical procedures. Each treatment option category is selectively customized to the patient’s spine condition and the location of their pain generator.

Various professionals exist who focus on treating pain. However, physicians who practice PPM and SPM require specific education and training with the newer endoscopic visualized techniques called endoscopic spine surgery or the YESS technique developed by Dr. Anthony Yeung (Retired and founder of DISC).

These new endoscopic techniques target the source of pain by allowing the surgeon direct visualized access within the spine. They are effective, safe, and have superior long-term results compared to pain management procedures. If you’d like to talk to one of our professionals about what we can do for your pain, contact us or make an appointment today!

Pain Management Short-Term Relief for Low Back Pain

Pain management focuses on identifying and treating spine-related symptoms with repeated epidural steroid, medial branch, or trigger point injections. From a diagnostic standpoint, injections are crucial to selectively pinpointing a painful area of the spine.

For example, suppose a medial branch injection to facet joint for low back pain provides pain relief. In that case, a patient may benefit from a procedure called Radiofrequency Ablation (RFA).

The RFA procedure is effective at temporarily disconnecting the pain signal in your low back. However, the RFA procedure is a short-term pain treatment with many patients back in pain within six to twelve months. The percutaneous procedure done under X-ray does not allow the pain management physician to visualize the painful nerve. Although the pain physician can effectively put a lesion on the nerve, the nerve regenerates in 6-12 months.

Long-Term Surgical Solutions for Patients with Back Pain

Where pain management radiofrequency ablation provides short-term relief, an endoscopic rhizotomy significantly improves low back pain relief lasting up to five years. For many patients, this procedure is an excellent alternative to a lumbar spinal fusion.

The endoscopic rhizotomy procedure was invented and developed at DISC by Anthony Yeung, MD (retired). Dr. Yeung saw a need to improve upon a pain management procedure called radiofrequency ablation (RFA), performed without direct visualization under X-ray guidance.

Our surgeons directly visualize these nerves with an HD endoscope. They can ablate the nerve using a laser or radiofrequency probe with confidence, thus providing patients with long-term pain relief.

Am I a Candidate for Surgical Pain Management?

To determine whether the DISC surgeons can help you, they may perform or repeat the diagnostic injections already provided by other specialists.

This is because there are subjective determinations in every test that require interpretation by the surgeon or pain specialist performing the injection procedures that can deviate by as much as 30 percent.

When performing their own diagnostic and therapeutic injections, the surgeons at DISC have gained enough experience to determine the likelihood that they can provide pain relief for your particular condition.

The diagnostic tests performed elsewhere are apparent at times, so it is unnecessary to repeat the tests.

Your DISC surgeon will inform you if he can proceed with a surgical recommendation without these additional or repeat tests.

You may be a candidate for endoscopic spine surgery if you:

Have leg pain, numbness, tingling made worse by sitting or bending or arching your back

Are not any better after 4 – 6 weeks of conservative treatment including rest and physical therapy

Are not better after epidural blocks

Have an MRI, CT scan, CT myelogram, or discogram showing a disc herniation

Due to evolving physicians treatment methodology, certain degenerative conditions, if not too severe, can be helped, but only after individual evaluation of each patient and their response to evocative discography, and other diagnostic injections can our surgeons tell if the endoscopic procedure is recommended for you.

If you would like to see if you are a candidate for endoscopic spine surgery and live in the Arizona state reach out to us for an appointment. If you are out of the Arizona state and would like to obtain a second opinion, click below.

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March 2, 2026

Desert Institute for Spine Care SurgeonsNamed Phoenix Magazine Top Doctors 2026

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Nonsurgical Treatment Options	Ultra or Least Invasive Surgical Options	Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery
Therapeutic Injections Muscle Reconditioning Optimal Joint Mobility Flexibility Techniques	Endoscopic Discectomy Endoscopic Facet Rhizotomy Endoscopic Foraminoplasty Intracept Vertebroplasty/Kyphoplasty	Lumbar Spine Fusion Anterior Cervical Decompression and Fusion (ACDF) Cervical Disc Replacement Lumbar Laminectomy Anterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion (ALIF) Lumbar Microdiscectomy Extreme Lateral Interbody Fusion (XLIF) Transforaminal Lumbar Interbody Fusion (TLIF) Posterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion (PLIF) Coflex

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