How Long Does It Take To Recover From Back Surgery?

Back surgery has been around for a long time. For most of its history, modern back surgeries have been called open surgery. This involves the creation of multiple, very large incisions in the muscles of the back so that the target surgery area can be reached.

In recent years, another kind of back surgery - called minimally-invasive surgery - has been on the rise. In this case, a few, small incisions are made in the back. Then, one or more catheters are inserted through the back muscles.Then, surgical instruments are inserted into the incisions through the catheters. For minimally-invasive surgery, the doctor views the procedure using a form of "moving x-ray."

Depending upon the type of back surgery (and other factors), back surgery recovery times can vary significantly from a few weeks to a few months.

Besides the type of surgery performed, other factors influencing back surgery recovery time include:

1. The state of health of the patient before the surgery
2. How (and how well) the patient takes care of himself or herself after the surgery
3. Whether the patient follows their doctor's orders in terms of diet and exercise
4. The type of condition being treated

Examples of back surgery recover times include:

a. Spine surgery: 7-12 weeks

b. Lumbar spine surgery: 4-6 weeks

For more information on recovery times after back surgery, check out: http://www.squidoo.com/how-long-does-it-take-to-recover-from-back-surgery.