About 10 % of all herniated discs call for surgery. However, a new endoscopic spine surgery being performed at Piedmont Orthopaedic Complex  allows you as a patient  to be able to walk home the same day and be pain-free after a couple of weeks enabling you to live your life actively again.

- No general anesthesia
- Outpatient treatment without hospital stay
- No injury of muscles and connective tissue
- In general no postoperative pain or muscle pain
- No scarring
- Very low risk of infections
- Very short recovery time

During the surgical operation - which lasts approximately one hour - the patient is analgosedated. This means that the pain is numbed (analgesia), and the patient is sedated (sedation). Compared to general anaesthesia, the patient is able to react immediately to possible pain, meaning nerve damage is almost impossible.

Although the patient is awake and responsive during the whole surgical operation, memory capacity is limited. As a result, the procedure is also suitable for patients with fear of surgery.

Thanks to improvements in anaesthesia, analgesia is well tolerated, and can even be used on elderly patients, or patients with cardiovascular problems. For elderly patients anesthesists rely on Remifentanilhydrochlorid (active pharmaceutical ingredient/Abbr. AP of Ultiva^®) as it is decomposed by the tissue rather than by the liver and kidneys.

The surgeon removes only leaked íntervertebral disc material, and does not injure surrounding tissue. Therefore stability of the spinal column is maintained, and patients can generally leave the hospital on the same day.

Minimal-invasive keyhole technique: the smallest possible access

When operating according to this method, surgeons avoid wide and deep cuts. Instead, surrounding tissue is dilated step by step, and the muscles and connective tissue surrounding the spinal column are protected. The treatment is “bloodless”. Scarring, wound and muscle pain is very rare, and the risk of infection is reduced considerably.

Quick recovery with endoscopy

US research hospital “The Cleveland Clinic Foundation” stated that “a patient who has been treated according to the endoscopic method will be free of pain within three to six weeks, whereas the recovery period for the conventional method is estimated at three to six months.”

The success rate of the TESSYS^® method is proven to lie around 90%. Generally, the number of patients who have to be re-operated on is relatively small at only 5%-6%, this compares favourably to patients previously operated on using another method where approximately 10% to 12% require another operation.