Failed Back Surgery Syndrome: Can Rehabilitation Help Persistent Back Pain?
When the surgery is over—but the pain isn't For many patients, spine surgery represents the end of a long journey with back or leg pain. But sometimes, months after the operation, the pain persists—or returns. The patient may ask: “If the surgery was successful, why am I still in pain?” Persistent or recurrent pain after spinal surgery has traditionally been called Failed Back Surgery Syndrome (FBSS) . Increasingly, clinicians use the term Persistent Spinal Pain Syndrome Type 2 (PSPS-T2) because postoperative pain can arise from several different mechanisms and does not necessarily mean that the surgery itself has failed. The challenge is to determine why the pain persists and what the next useful step should be. Why does pain persist after spine surgery? There is rarely one explanation for every patient. Possible contributors include: Recurrent or residual disc herniation Persistent nerve compression or spinal stenosis Epid...