“Step on a crack, break your mother’s back” is a harmless childhood warning to avoid pavement cracks when walking, but if kids only knew that spinal fractures have serious ramifications, they might choose their words more carefully.
When we think of back problems and pain, issues like disc degeneration or a ruptured disc come to mind, but you may not know how many people suffer from spinal fractures. Also known as vertebral compression fractures, they affect 1.5 million people annually, and a common cause is living with osteoporosis, which causes your bones to become fragile and brittle.
Spinal fractures occur twice as frequently as other types of fractures — like wrist and ankle fractures — in people with osteoporosis and can also stem from a sudden traumatic injury, like a car accident, a sports injury, and in some cases, due to a spinal tumor.
Dr. Benjamin Cohen is highly skilled at repairing spinal fractures, regardless of origin. As a highly sought-after board-certified neurosurgeon, Dr. Cohen performs minimally invasive surgery to address vertebral collapse and spinal fractures.
Any part of your spine can be affected by a fracture — the cervical spine (neck area), thoracic spine (the middle of your back), or the lumbar spine (lower back).
A spinal fracture causes multiple types of pain and discomfort, including:
In severe cases, you can lose bowel and bladder control and even experience limb paralysis.
Spinal fractures are serious, so seeking medical treatment as soon as possible is essential.
Fortunately, Dr. Cohen has an arsenal of approaches for treating spinal fractures, including wearing a brace to immobilize your back, limiting physical activity, and pain medications. If you live with osteoporosis, addressing that condition is part of the treatment path for a fracture.
Dr. Cohen may recommend surgery based on his evaluation of your symptoms and the results of imaging tests. When possible, he favors minimally invasive procedures, which are associated with faster healing, reduced risk of infection, and less pain, bleeding, and scarring for patients.
Vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty are surgeries where Dr. Cohen inserts a hollow needle into your collapsed vertebra and injects bone cement, a quick-drying substance that stabilizes your spine.
The distinction with kyphoplasty is that Dr. Cohen uses a balloon to expand your bone and restore height before he injects the bone cement.
Another restoration procedure, lumbar vertebral body replacement, is used in some circumstances. The vertebral body is a sturdy oval-shaped part of each vertebra, and when this is fractured, your spine becomes highly unstable and the spinal nerves painfully compressed.
During the surgery, Dr. Cohen removes the damaged part of the vertebral body and replaces it with a metal cage filled with bone graft materials that encourage bone growth. Amazingly, new bone growth extends beyond the cage as the vertebral body heals over time and fuses with your natural bone.
These are just a few of the procedures Dr. Cohen performs to mend spinal fractures, but he customizes every procedure to each patient’s specific injury and circumstances.
Call our Garden City office at 516-246-5008 to schedule an in-office or telemedicine appointment and determine your options if you have fractured your spine. You may also book online with us.
