CHARITE™ Artificial Disc

What Should I Expect After Surgery?

After your surgery with the CHARITE™ Artificial Disc, it is important that you follow your surgeon's instructions for recovery. Make sure you get and keep your surgeon's name and telephone number.

In most cases, immediately after surgery, your heart and lung function will continue to be monitored, and your doctor will prescribe medicines to control pain and nausea.The average hospital stay for disc replacement surgery patients in the study used to evaluate the CHARITE™ Artificial Disc was about four days. A nurse will show you how to care for your wound before you are sent home, and your doctor will discuss a program to gradually increase your activity. It is possible that you will be asked to wear a back brace or elastic bandage to support your abdominal muscles after surgery.

Contact your doctor immediately after surgery if:

you get a fever
the wound starts leaking fluids
you have trouble swallowing or breathing
you have trouble urinating
you have new or increased back or leg pain or numbness

Life After Disc Replacement

Pain relief, the reduction of further degeneration and resumption of daily activities are typical goals of spine surgery. While both fusion surgery and artificial disc replacement can provide pain relief and stability, with spinal fusion the vertebrae surrounding the disc space are immobilized, and therefore limit flexibility in that area of the spine.

Laboratory testing shows that the CHARITE™ Artificial Disc design allows the spine to move. In the U.S. clinical study of the CHARITE™ Artificial Disc from DePuy Spine, patients who had CHARITÉTM Disc replacement surgery were observed to have motion between 0 and 21 degrees while bending forward and backward.

The clinical study also demonstrated that patients who received the CHARITE™ Artificial Disc had pain relief and restored function no worse than patients who had fusion surgery two years after the surgery.The rates of complications were about the same between the two groups. Reports from Europe of patients who have had the CHARITE™ Artificial Disc implanted for 10 years or more show similar results.

Nobody can guarantee that after disc replacement surgery you will never feel pain again or that your spine will fully regain its flexibility. If you're like the majority of spinal surgery patients, you'll experience a decrease in pain and you'll gradually be able to increase your level of activity. With your pain minimized or no longer an issue, your concentration level on task will be noticeably better.

Ask your surgeon for more details about the results of the clinical study and life after disc replacement.