Quality of life is something most doctors dream of offering their patients, but sorting through the risks and potential benefits of treatments must be done in partnership. For Jim Scheiter, however, invasive care provided the new life he hoped for. 

He came back from two tours in Iraq so utterly disabled that he couldn’t stand for longer than 15 minutes at a time. He spent years trying medication and physiotherapy to no avail. Then a spine surgeon recommended a lumbar interbody fusion, a surgery usually reserved for disc disease. This therapy has performed well in trials, with 88% of patients gaining quality of life. The operation is able to remove the cause of pain without cutting through muscle.

Within a week, Scheiter was already walking, and today, he’s completely pain-free. 

Is Spine Surgery for You?

Aside from the obvious fact that your individual condition may or may not warrant surgery, there are a number of factors to consider. Every patient has a different degree of tolerance to the risks associated with spine surgery, and every surgery has different rates of success. Surgery is a process rather than a choice you make at a single point in time. In most cases, patients exhaust non-invasive options before considering invasive ones. More importantly, they must find a skilled, board certified surgeon they can trust.

This is no easy decision to make, so make sure you feel comfortable asking your doctor questions about your options.

Quality of Life

Back surgery’s efficacy rates vary enormously from condition to condition, and your idea of what quality of life means is core to your choice because patients’ values vary as much as their personalities. Quality of life can be seen as a subjective idea of happiness, but for pain patients, it frequently means restoring a normal lifestyle. You deserve a full life and your best chance at a pain-free one. At Sonoran Spine, our doctors recommend only strong evidence-based medical treatments. We cannot promise miracles, but we can offer realistic hope.