Licensed by the American Board of Orthopedic Surgery, Dr. Jamie Gottlieb is a spine surgeon with the Orthopedic Specialists North Texas in Denton, TX. Dr. Jamie Gottlieb dedicates over a decade of experience to perform spinal surgeries such as cervical discectomy and lumbar fusion.
Cervical discectomy is a surgical procedure that removes defective intervertebral disc(s) from the neck region of the spine. When an intervertebral disc gets damaged, it can irritate nearby nerves or cause muscle spasms which may result in neck pain that sometimes recover with conservative therapy.
When there is a ruptured or bulging disc, the disc exerts pressure on cervical nerve roots, which may cause weakness, and pain or numbness in extremities (cervical myelopathy). In almost all cases of cervical myelopathy, surgery is indicated.
Depending on the location of the defective disc, the surgeon may operate on the area through a small incision made on the front side or backside of the neck under anesthesia. Another technique, called microdiscectomy, uses special magnifying tools to allow excision of the defective disk through a smaller incision. To stabilize the area where the work is done and also to restore the height of the spine, the surgeon may perform a cervical fusion surgery or artificial cervical disc replacement.
With disc replacement, motion is restored in the operation site. However, underlying joint disease, infection, auto-immune disorder, or allergy to stainless, and osteoporosis can prevent a patient from being a valid candidate for the procedure. Cervical fusion surgery, on the other hand, replaces the removed disc with a bone graft that grows for some time to finally fuse with the vertebral bones above and below. The fusion may restrict some degree of motion in the neck.
Dr. Jamie Gottlieb 