How painful is artificial disc replacement?

Well, they’re inserted through standard approaches or even minimally invasive methods. This means there’s not a lot of dissection around the muscles. All disc replacements are placed from the front, in the anterior direction, both for the neck and lower back. This approach avoids disturbing the muscles in the back.

It’s typically the muscles affected by posterior surgeries that cause significant pain with spine surgery. We perform these operations in a surgery center, so patients are either discharged the same day or stay overnight, and they’re walking immediately afterward.

In terms of pain, it’s much less painful than a large fusion operation involving screws and rods, but probably a bit more painful than a minimally invasive microdiscectomy. Most of the pain occurs during the first four to eight hours, which is why we use specific anesthesia techniques to manage it during that period. Afterward, the pain usually subsides considerably.

By the time we see patients at the two-week follow-up, they’re typically feeling pretty well. In our study during the FDA trial for lumbar disc replacement with the Maverick disc, the average return to work for desk jobs was within four weeks. This gives you an idea of how fast recovery can be—usually within two weeks, patients are ready to start outpatient physical therapy.