After a Microscopic Discectomy

Most people can expect to return to normal activity shortly after surgery. However, surgery is a journey and you should understand the risks and complications of any procedure, along with how to care for yourself during your recovery period.

Microscopic procedures are almost always performed in an outpatient setting. You stay in the hospital until you are stabilized post-surgery and alert enough to be discharged. The actual amount of time you’ll be there depends on the type of surgery, but since microscopic discectomy is minimally invasive, you should go home the same day.

Pain Level Differences

Postoperatively, you can expect your pain to be different.

People often complain about sciatica as a pain that originates in the low back and travels down to the buttocks into the legs and groin area. It could even go to the rear part of the leg and neck and a feeling of numbness and tingling going down the arms into the hands.

Postoperatively, your pain should be different. The pain you experience postoperatively will most often be centered on localized pain from the incision and from the surgery, not like the nerve pain you were feeling before.

The changes in pain level affect postoperative care because you must be out of pain to begin physical therapy.