Soccer star’s Northwestern back surgery accomplishes goal

Though most people in the United States are unaware, save for the odd soccer fan, a major soccer star traveled all the way from Europe to go under the knife in Chicago this week.

Gonzalo Higuain, 23-year-old Argentinian star striker for world-renowned Spanish soccer team Real Madrid, sought surgery from Northwestern Memorial Hospital neurosurgeon Dr. Richard Fessler to remove a herniated disc.

Fessler told a press conference Tuesday that the surgery, a "routine microendoscopic discectomy" on the player's lower back, went very well and that the surgical team found what it expected to find.

Though herniated discs are common in athletes and average people alike, athletes are unique in that their careers rely heavily on recovering from injuries as quickly as possible.

According to Real Madrid's top doctor, Carlos Díez, recovery time and Fessler's noninvasive approach were two reasons the player and the team's medical staff decided to pursue his surgical expertise.

"The main decision was that Dr. Fessler uses minimal technical invasiveness," said Díez. "Everybody felt that is the best practice to try and solve the health problem because the complication post-surgery is less than with other methodologies and the time of recovery is reduced."

The surgery entailed making a 2-centimeter incision at the site of the herniated disc, removing a small portion of the spinal bone to gain access to the spinal cord and to remove the disc fragment that was applying pressure to the surrounding nerves and causing the player's lower back pain.

Dr. Fred Geisler, a neurological surgeon at the Chicago Back Institute at Swedish Covenant Hospital, likened the effect of a herniated disc to "standing on someone's foot."

"It's a piece of disc pressing on a nerve route and it's that very fact that it's pressing [on the nerve] that's causing the problem," said Geisler.

According to spine-health.com, about 90 percent of disc herniation occurs at the L4-L5 lumbar segment, located at the bottom of the spine.

Higuain, who earns $24,000 a week playing for Real Madrid, was released from the hospital on Wednesday, a testament to the speedy recovery these surgeries tend to guarantee. Fessler said it will take four months for Higuain to play competitively.

Fessler believes he can begin stretching and strengthening exercises in two to four weeks and will be able to participate in non-competitive practice in about two months. It will likely take a year, however, for him to return to his pre-surgery peak.

Though the surgery was a success, Chicago Back Institute's Geisler noted that people who suffer from these injuries never fully recover.

"Once the spine has been damaged, it goes into a degenerative cascade," said Geisler.

Higuain's age undoubtedly works in his favor, but being a professional athlete who constantly runs the risk of sustaining these injuries will speed up the degenerative process.

"It can continue on for the rest of their life," said Geisler. "It never really heals."