Jeff Langmaid warns that disc herniation recurs in 30% of lumbar discectomy patients, and postoperative spinal instability affects 25%. Repeated surgeries on the same disc often lead to fusion, contrary to what many patients expect.
Previously, it's been noted that recurrence rate of a disc herniation following discectomy can be as high as 30%. Yes, you heard that correctly. That's astounding. Most patients most of the time have no clue that that's the truth. Let's be honest, almost everybody out there believes that surgery is going to, quote, unquote, fix their problem one third of the time, minimum 1/3 of the time. Because there are other things that can happen to make it unsuccessful. One third of the time, the same exact problems comes back. That's a big deal. We're also going to talk about the fact that you can't just keep working on the same disc advancing to a fusion. That's a really big deal. They also highlight the fact that instability rates post discectomy are around 25%. Those are big numbers and a big deal, especially when people are mostly sold on a disectomy to avoid a fusion procedure, when in reality, maybe not a majority of the time, but a good chunk of the time, they're actually moving their way closer to a fusion by having this.
