Most pain in the lower back can be treated without surgery. Nevertheless, there are times when back surgery is a viable or necessary option to treat serious musculoskeletal injuries or nerve compression.  The specialist consultants can decide whether surgery is an appropriate choice after making sure they have exhausted all other options.

The following are some of the surgical options for low back pain:

Vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty:  to repair compression fractures of the vertebrae caused by osteoporosis.

Spinal laminectomy/spinal decompression:  this can be performed when spinal stenosis causes a narrowing of the spinal canal that results in pain, numbness, or weakness.

Discectomy: it is used to remove a disk when it has herniated and presses on a nerve root or the spinal cord.

Foraminotomy: when the surgeon enlarges the bony hole where a nerve root exits the spinal canal to prevent bulging disks or joints thickening with age from pressing on the nerve.

Nucleoplasty, also called plasma disk decompression: This laser surgery uses radiofrequency energy to treat people with low back pain associated with a mildly herniated disk.

Spinal fusion: when the surgeon removes the spinal disk between two or more vertebrae, then fuses the adjacent vertebrae using bone grafts or metal devices secured by screws.

Artificial disk replacement: This is considered an alternative to spinal fusion for the treatment of people with severely damaged disks.