Does lumbar compression fracture require surgery?

Lumbar compression fracture is a common lumbar fracture in our lives. The disease is caused by lumbar pain due to lumbar displacement. If the displacement is serious, surgery is generally required to restore the lumbar spine. However, some patients recover even without surgery. Therefore, many patients are confused about whether lumbar compression fracture requires surgery. Therefore, this article makes the following analysis on this issue:

Lumbar fractures are generally not displaced much, and the patient only needs to lie flat and apply traction to achieve normal reduction. Therefore, surgery is not required in most cases. Given the patient’s age, his qi and blood are relatively weak, making him even less suitable for surgery, so traditional Chinese medicine is the best treatment method. Besides, the key to treatment is not "fixation", but to allow the injured area to grow callus as quickly as possible, so that the broken bones can heal as quickly as possible and achieve complete recovery. This is the focus of treatment.

1. Does the wedging of lumbar compression fracture exceed 1/3? If so, surgery is recommended.

2. Does the lumbar compression fracture affect the nerves of the lower limbs (especially the cauda equina around the third, fourth, and fifth lumbar vertebrae)? If it has affected them, surgery is required; if it has not affected them or is developing in a positive direction, then surgery is definitely not required.

3. Rest is the best time to rest in the early stage of injury. You should sleep on a hard bed as much as possible within three months. However, you should be careful not to lift heavy objects in the next few years or even decades. When sitting on an office chair, you should lean your armpits against the back of the chair as much as possible to reduce the pressure of your body weight on the spine as much as possible (this should be done regardless of whether you have surgery or not).

4. For patients with multiple lumbar vertebrae compression fractures, a "wire vest" needs to be customized after resting. It is an upper body support frame made of stainless steel. The principle is to put the weight of the upper body on the waist or hips to achieve the same purpose as the previous one. There is no need to buy one with fewer sections, not because of the money, but because it is quite uncomfortable to wear.

Therefore, whether lumbar compression fractures require surgery depends on the patient's condition. If the patient's fracture is not very serious, surgery is generally not required and only rest is needed to recover. However, if the patient's symptoms are more serious and he wants to recover quickly, surgical treatment is still the best treatment method.