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Nonsurgical and Minimally Invasive Options to Treat Back and Spine Pain
Back and spine pain can severely impact a person’s quality of life. Luckily, there are nonsurgical and minimally invasive treatment options that can alleviate your pain.
Featured Speaker:
Learn more about David Urquia, M.D
David Urquia, MD
David Urquia, M.D. has more than three decades of experience in treating adult spinal conditions with both surgical and non-surgical approaches. He has special interest in conditions of the cervical spine — those seven stacked bones, C1 through C7, in the neck.Learn more about David Urquia, M.D
Transcription:
Nonsurgical and Minimally Invasive Options to Treat Back and Spine Pain
Caitlin Whyte: Back and spine pain can severely impact a person's quality of life. But luckily, there are non-surgical and minimally invasive treatment options that can alleviate your pain. Joining us today is Dr. David Urquia, an orthopedic surgeon and Professor in VCU School of Medicine to talk about back pain and treatment.
Welcome to Healthy with VCU Health where experts from VCU Health share their knowledge, cutting edge research, and the latest innovations to help you achieve optimal health and wellness. Take control of your health. I'm your host, Caitlin Whyte.
So doctor, starting off this episode, can you tell us about your specialty as an orthopaedic surgeon specializing in spines?
David Urquia, MD: Sure. I basically treat patients who have either traumatic spine conditions or non-traumatic, and these are adults, sometimes even tumors of the spine. And this means the cervical spine, thoracic spine and lumbar, so pretty much top to bottom. I'm a surgeon, so we obviously have some patients for surgical management of these conditions. And my other role is to direct patients who don't have surgical needs on their spine to other nonsurgical options.
Caitlin Whyte: And what would you say are the most common conditions that you see in your office and treat?
David Urquia, MD: I mostly treat spine neurological conditions or spine nerve compressions, like either in individual nerves or spinal cord. And this would include conditions like spine herniated discs and what we call spinal stenosis, radiculopathy which means pinched nerve in the spine, and also some fractures.
Caitlin Whyte: So let's touch a bit on what a patient can do before they get to you, before they get to surgery. How can pain management and physical therapy help a patient avoid that step?
David Urquia, MD: Well, we certainly use, and I certainly use non-surgical methods like physical therapy in pain management quite a bit. It really depends on timing and what kind of condition the person has and their overall health as to what we choose these methods that you mentioned to try and avoid surgery. For example, pain management, which is mostly injection therapy performed by our pain management team is mostly for spine conditions that either don't have any surgical option or patients that their pain has been so new, it's far too early to consider surgery. Physical therapy, again, I use a lot for back pain and other painful conditions that either don't need surgery or it's premature.
Caitlin Whyte: And if those options just aren't working, at what point should a patient consider surgery as that next step?
David Urquia, MD: Obviously, we will give them advice when surgery becomes their best option. I think in general, the patient would consider surgery as a preferred method or at least strongly consider it if they have what we call structural instability in their spine, vertebrae had shifted either as a result of trauma or arthritis. So these structural conditions are prime indications for some of our surgeries.
And I think patients would consider surgery for nerve problems, which is primarily what I treat. Nerve pain, if they have uncontrolled pain or their nerve pain has not responded to the methods you mentioned, physical therapy or pain management, those are patients who probably should consider surgery as their next step.
Caitlin Whyte: Well, let's shift into hearing a bit about your practice locally. What locations do you practice out of?
David Urquia, MD: Yes. I have outpatient facilities for patient visits within the VCU system at currently three locations. One in Short Pump, which is in Western Henrico, one in Stony Point within Richmond and our newest location where spine services are now offered outpatient and inpatient, at Tappahannock, Virginia.
At that particular location, Tappahannock, I'm the only spine surgery specialist there. But the nice thing about that new location that VCU has acquired is that we have already set up multi-focal spine care there for spine patients that obviously include my assessments for surgery. We have full service and full-time pain management there for injection and other procedures. And the location also is fully set up for other services, such as physical therapy and spine imaging like MRI and our operating room, all there at Tappahannock and all this is a new creation by VCU.
Caitlin Whyte: And wrapping up here, doctor, if I'm dealing with back pain and I'm listening and this all sounds good to me, how can I make an appointment with you?
David Urquia, MD: There is an online site that people can access that would give this information for scheduling and phone numbers at our locations, that would be vcuhealth.org/orthopedics. And then for direct call, for example, the Tappahannock office, that number is (804) 443-8670 in terms of direct access into the orthopaedic office there.
Caitlin Whyte: Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for your time today, doctor, and working with our patients to alleviate their pain. And thank you for listening to Healthy with VCU Health. Just like Dr. Urquia said, to learn more about back and spine pain and our same-day clinics, you can visit vcuhealth.org/orthopedics. I'm Caitlin Whyte. We'll see you next time.
Nonsurgical and Minimally Invasive Options to Treat Back and Spine Pain
Caitlin Whyte: Back and spine pain can severely impact a person's quality of life. But luckily, there are non-surgical and minimally invasive treatment options that can alleviate your pain. Joining us today is Dr. David Urquia, an orthopedic surgeon and Professor in VCU School of Medicine to talk about back pain and treatment.
Welcome to Healthy with VCU Health where experts from VCU Health share their knowledge, cutting edge research, and the latest innovations to help you achieve optimal health and wellness. Take control of your health. I'm your host, Caitlin Whyte.
So doctor, starting off this episode, can you tell us about your specialty as an orthopaedic surgeon specializing in spines?
David Urquia, MD: Sure. I basically treat patients who have either traumatic spine conditions or non-traumatic, and these are adults, sometimes even tumors of the spine. And this means the cervical spine, thoracic spine and lumbar, so pretty much top to bottom. I'm a surgeon, so we obviously have some patients for surgical management of these conditions. And my other role is to direct patients who don't have surgical needs on their spine to other nonsurgical options.
Caitlin Whyte: And what would you say are the most common conditions that you see in your office and treat?
David Urquia, MD: I mostly treat spine neurological conditions or spine nerve compressions, like either in individual nerves or spinal cord. And this would include conditions like spine herniated discs and what we call spinal stenosis, radiculopathy which means pinched nerve in the spine, and also some fractures.
Caitlin Whyte: So let's touch a bit on what a patient can do before they get to you, before they get to surgery. How can pain management and physical therapy help a patient avoid that step?
David Urquia, MD: Well, we certainly use, and I certainly use non-surgical methods like physical therapy in pain management quite a bit. It really depends on timing and what kind of condition the person has and their overall health as to what we choose these methods that you mentioned to try and avoid surgery. For example, pain management, which is mostly injection therapy performed by our pain management team is mostly for spine conditions that either don't have any surgical option or patients that their pain has been so new, it's far too early to consider surgery. Physical therapy, again, I use a lot for back pain and other painful conditions that either don't need surgery or it's premature.
Caitlin Whyte: And if those options just aren't working, at what point should a patient consider surgery as that next step?
David Urquia, MD: Obviously, we will give them advice when surgery becomes their best option. I think in general, the patient would consider surgery as a preferred method or at least strongly consider it if they have what we call structural instability in their spine, vertebrae had shifted either as a result of trauma or arthritis. So these structural conditions are prime indications for some of our surgeries.
And I think patients would consider surgery for nerve problems, which is primarily what I treat. Nerve pain, if they have uncontrolled pain or their nerve pain has not responded to the methods you mentioned, physical therapy or pain management, those are patients who probably should consider surgery as their next step.
Caitlin Whyte: Well, let's shift into hearing a bit about your practice locally. What locations do you practice out of?
David Urquia, MD: Yes. I have outpatient facilities for patient visits within the VCU system at currently three locations. One in Short Pump, which is in Western Henrico, one in Stony Point within Richmond and our newest location where spine services are now offered outpatient and inpatient, at Tappahannock, Virginia.
At that particular location, Tappahannock, I'm the only spine surgery specialist there. But the nice thing about that new location that VCU has acquired is that we have already set up multi-focal spine care there for spine patients that obviously include my assessments for surgery. We have full service and full-time pain management there for injection and other procedures. And the location also is fully set up for other services, such as physical therapy and spine imaging like MRI and our operating room, all there at Tappahannock and all this is a new creation by VCU.
Caitlin Whyte: And wrapping up here, doctor, if I'm dealing with back pain and I'm listening and this all sounds good to me, how can I make an appointment with you?
David Urquia, MD: There is an online site that people can access that would give this information for scheduling and phone numbers at our locations, that would be vcuhealth.org/orthopedics. And then for direct call, for example, the Tappahannock office, that number is (804) 443-8670 in terms of direct access into the orthopaedic office there.
Caitlin Whyte: Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for your time today, doctor, and working with our patients to alleviate their pain. And thank you for listening to Healthy with VCU Health. Just like Dr. Urquia said, to learn more about back and spine pain and our same-day clinics, you can visit vcuhealth.org/orthopedics. I'm Caitlin Whyte. We'll see you next time.