For many of us, neck or back pain is an occasional but manageable nuisance caused by heavy lifting or prolonged sitting. But if your pain is frequent or severe, and prevents you from taking part in normal activities, you should seek care from a spine specialist.

At Athens Orthopedic Clinic, we frequently treat adults with chronic neck or back pain caused by medical conditions, injuries or structural spine problems. These include:

• Fractured or dislocated vertebrae
• Herniated discs
• Scoliosis 
• Spinal stenosis
• Spondylolisthesis

If you’re looking for nonsurgical therapies, we offer a wide range of options that may help you find relief. And if you need surgery, you can take comfort knowing our spine surgeons have the most experience performing complex revision and reconstruction surgeries — and offer the widest range of surgical options — outside of Atlanta.

Nonsurgical Treatments for Neck and Back Pain

In many cases, we can help you manage pain, numbness, weakness and other symptoms using conservative treatments. Your options include: 

• Rehabilitation. Our physical therapists can help you improve your posture, flexibility and core strength.
• Oral medicine. Certain over-the-counter and prescription medications reduce pain and inflammation. These can include anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen and naproxen sodium, and muscle relaxants. Be sure to talk to your doctor before beginning any medications.
• Injections. Our interventional pain management specialists offer injectable medicines that may help reduce pain and inflammation. These include epidural steroid injections, facet joint injections, peripheral nerve blocks and plasma injections.
• Spinal cord stimulators. These implantable devices send electrical signals directly into your spinal cord to help relieve pain.

Our Spine Surgery Options

If nonsurgical treatments don’t help or stop working, you should schedule an evaluation with a spine surgeon. For many people with complex spine conditions, surgery offers the best chance of finding relief (and a new lease on life).

Here at Athens Orthopedic Clinic, we may be able to help you find relief even if your symptoms didn’t improve after having surgery elsewhere — or you’ve been told you are out of options.

Our areas of expertise include: 

• Discectomy. We remove the bulging part of a herniated disc so it no longer presses against your nerves.
• Disc replacement. Your surgeon removes a problem disc and replaces it with an artificial one.
• Kyphoplasty. We insert and inflate a special balloon inside a compressed, fractured vertebra. This raises the vertebra to its normal height and creates space that we fill with bone cement.
• Laminectomy. We remove the back part of one or more vertebrae to widen the spinal canal. This relieves pressure on your spinal cord and nerves.
• Spinal fusion. Your surgeon welds together two or more vertebrae to create a single, more stable bone.
• Vertebroplasty. We inject bone cement directly into a cracked vertebra.

Minimally Invasive Neck and Back Surgery

In most cases, our surgeons use less invasive approaches that may help you recover more quickly and with less pain. These include:

• Accessing the spine through a part of the body that lets us use fewer (or smaller) incisions.
• Using special tools that let us separate your muscles instead of cutting through them or detaching them from the bone. 

Why Choose Athens Orthopedic Clinic for Spine Care

If you’re looking for a safe, successful solution for your spine problem, turn to the specialists at Athens Orthopedic Clinic. We’ve helped many Georgians reduce or reverse chronic pain, restore function and regain their quality of life.

People also choose us because:

• We offer complete, well-coordinated care. Our locations throughout Northeast Georgia include imaging centers, outpatient surgery centers, physical and occupational therapy centers, and orthopedic urgent care clinics. This means we can take care of you from diagnosis and treatment through rehab and recovery.
• We offer outpatient spine surgery. Patients who meet certain criteria can return home the same day they have surgery at our Athens surgery center. Studies show that recovering in the comfort of your own home instead of a hospital may lower your risk of infection and other complications. 
• We develop new surgical tools and techniques. Members of our team have patented spinal implant designs and new spine surgery instruments used by surgeons across the country. We were also among the first in the southeastern United States to perform a new type of spinal fusion called single-position, prone lateral access surgery. With this approach we don’t have to cut through muscle, so your recovery is quicker and less painful.
• You have access to a premier fitness facility. Our health and fitness partner, SPARC gym, shares space with the physical therapy team at our Athens office. SPARC offers one-on-one consultations, customized exercise plans and individual or group training sessions. They can help you manage back pain through weight loss or exercise, or increase strength and range of motion after spine surgery. 
• We’re leaders in spine surgery research. We help make spine surgery safer and more effective by leading (or participating in) research to test new tools and techniques. For example, we recently helped confirm that a new bone grafting material made of living cells can enhance the success of spinal fusion surgery.
  

Read the VAST Clinical Trial: Safely Supplementing Tissue Lost to Degenerative Disc Disease by Douglas P. Beall, Gregory L. Wilson, Randolph Bishop and William Tally.

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