What are the disadvantages of endoscopic spinal procedure?
Obviously the website stresses the advantage of endoscopic spinal surgery, but what about the disadvantages? There is one disadvantage, since I am working through a small portal and can address only one problem level at a time. Therefore, if you have spinal stenosis affecting two levels at time, two procedures are necessary, which can be done at the same time in a hospital setting, but is often not tolerated as an outpatient. It has always seemed odd to me that one-level surgery is tolerated so well, even as an outpatient, but to add an extra level sometimes is fairly limiting the night of the surgery in some people. The procedures take about 1 ½ hours per level, and there are also some time considerations if people are having the surgery while under IV sedation. Most people do say that the discomfort of having even multiple procedures at the same time is minimal compared to one conventional type of procedure.
