Cervical disc hernia

What is a cervical disc hernia?

Cervical disc hernias are basically an injury to the intervertebral disc or the cushion that sits between bone and bone in your spinal column. They are somewhat special because apart from protecting the weight that passes through the neck, they also protect our movements and give us certain stability.

Basically, a disc hernia is when the disc is protected around a very hard fibrous tissue called the fibrous ring and protects inside a gel that is 70% water. This gel has the characteristic that the more we compress it, the harder it gets and the more it can withstand loads. But sometimes that protective layer breaks and forms a bulge, like when you hit a car tire very hard - that's a disc hernia.

The problem with these disc hernias is that behind where that cushion is located, some cables pass through. One of those cables are called nerve roots or nerves. These pass information from the brain to the spine and to wherever they're connected.

The problem when I compress the root is that it will cause pain wherever that nerve passes. It can be pain or it can be loss of sensation, or it can be loss of strength, because the muscles are not acting as they should, because that information cable is being pinched, so to speak.

When to operate on cervicals?

Approximately 60% of all disc hernias are treated conservatively, but when this conservative treatment fails or meets certain characteristics that make it a type of emergency, so to speak, such as intractable pain or very significant loss of motor function or movement, then surgery is performed. What is done is to remove the hernia and it has to be replaced with something.

What are the types of surgery?

One of them is to put a little box instead of the disc, there are some where just the box is placed and others where the box and a plate in front are placed to fuse. The idea is to replace the work that the disc was doing and after these parts of the cervical spine are fused together, there is another type of surgery but this is only for very selected patients and that is to put a disc prosthesis. This basically replaces what the disc does.
Normally it's not done for many levels and the patient has to be very carefully selected in that there should be no wear at all. Normally it's a young patient, there should be no instability at all, meaning the spine shouldn't move where it's not supposed to move.

Is mobility lost after surgery?

The truth is that it's not much. To the point that the patient or you will adapt to that movement.

If you are looking for more information about surgeries for cervical hernia, I invite you to send a message or make an appointment - the contact information is below to communicate with us or you can also send us a message through email, also at the bottom of the page.