What’s the advantage of Minimally Invasive Surgery?

Traditional surgery has served its purpose throughout the years and some of these procedures still need to be used at this time. Minimally-invasive procedures are simply an improvement over existing techniques.

What do we mean by “minimally-invasive” surgery? In all likelihood, you have a pretty decent idea as to what is entailed with traditional surgery. Minimally-invasive surgery serves the same general objective—to repair tissue damaged within the body—but does so with the use of smaller cuts and incisions.

The field of medicine is one of continual progress and innovation. The reason we are able to perform these kinds of surgeries can be attributed to technological advances. For example, we are now able to use tiny cameras on the ends of flexible connective components. This replaces the need to make a larger incision to see both the initial injury and the work we are performing to address it.

So why is a minimally-invasive surgery better than a traditional procedure? Well, there are several different reasons for this:

• Less pain. When making an incision, a surgeon obviously has to cut through outer layers of body tissue to reach the injury site. In doing so, he or she may have to cut nerve tissues. Of course, surgery is performed under anesthesia, so pain is not usually an issue at the time of the procedure. Once the anesthesia wears off, pain can set in (which is why medication is almost always prescribed following surgery). With minimally-invasive surgery, fewer nerves and other tissues are cut – and this means less pain for our patients.
• Quicker recovery. Tying in with the previous benefit of minimally-invasive surgery, smaller incisions are more quickly healed by the body than larger ones. The human body has a remarkable ability to repair damaged tissue—and surgery is technically planned physical trauma—but it can take some time. If you want a faster recovery, these kinds of procedures can be quite beneficial.
• Less risk of complications. Any surgery is going to have a certain degree of risk for potential complications (because anything in life has a certain degree of risk for potential complications), but this risk is less for minimally-invasive surgeries. One specific complication that is less likely to occur is infection.

Even though operating rooms are sterilized to the highest standards, you obviously do not remain in there during your entire recovery. Instead, you go back out to the unsterile, “real” world. Once there, a smaller surgical site provides less opportunity for unwanted microorganisms to enter and cause an infection.

Of course, the hope is to avoid any kind of surgery in the first place. To that end, we are pleased to also offer a range of conservative treatment methods. Many patients are able to find the relief they are seeking with custom orthotics and other nonsurgical options.

If you suffer from foot or ankle pain and haven’t visited our office before, you may be interested to know that we offer free initial consultation – with no further obligation.

For more information on surgery—minimally-invasive or otherwise—contact our Houston office by calling 713.529.1010.