If medication, physical therapy, rest, or other techniques don’t work for your pain, your doctor may recommend surgery.
There are two types of surgery for treating compression fractures: vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty. With vertebroplasty, your doctor uses a needle to inject a bone cement mixture into the fracture to help it heal. With kyphoplasty, your doctor inflates a small balloon in the fracture to create a hollow space. Then the doctor fills it with the bone cement mixture. These procedures seem to work best if you have them within 8 weeks of getting the spinal fracture.