It often arrives without much of a story. Someone lifts a bag of soil, misses the last step, or coughs hard, and a bone in the mid or lower back gives way under a load it used to handle. The pain is sudden, sits in a band across the back, and is dramatically worse standing up than lying down.
That last detail is the giveaway. Muscle strain hurts with movement but tolerates standing. A compression fracture makes getting upright the worst moment of the day, and people describe planning their route out of bed around it.
Kyphoplasty restores height to the collapsed bone and stabilises it. A narrow channel is made into the vertebra, a small balloon is inflated inside to lift the collapsed portion, and the space it creates is filled with bone cement that sets quickly.
Stabilising the fracture is what removes the pain. The bone stops moving microscopically every time you load it, and the pain that was coming from that movement stops with it.
Kyphoplasty is performed at Mountain View Surgical Specialists, and in office at our Mesa and Westgate clinics. For the Denver metro that means MVSS, our surgery center at 5060 S Syracuse St in Denver.
The Pain Management physician who sees you first is the one who arranges it. Assessment can happen at any Denver-area clinic — Downtown Denver, Lowry, Central Park, Lakewood, Littleton, Highlands Ranch, Lone Tree, SE Aurora or Southlands — without restarting anything.
This works on fractures that are still recent. Imaging can distinguish a fracture that is actively healing from one that settled long ago, and that distinction decides whether the procedure is worth doing at all.
Which is why a sudden band of back pain in someone over sixty, or in anyone with thinning bone, is worth an appointment rather than a fortnight of waiting to see. Delay does not usually make the pain worse — it narrows the options.
Relief tends to arrive quickly, sometimes within a day or two, and people are usually encouraged to move normally rather than rest. Gentle Physical Therapy follows to rebuild what a few painful weeks took out of you.
One fracture is a signal about the bone, not only about the accident. Where bone density has not been assessed recently, that conversation belongs alongside the recovery. In Colorado most major commercial plans are accepted and we are in network with most Medicare Advantage plans; benefits are checked before the appointment.
The kyphoplasty page covers the procedure in general; see also Pain Management in Denver.
Every clinic below has Chiropractic, Physical Therapy, Acupuncture and Pain Management on one chart, so care can move between them without a new referral.
Downtown out through the north, west, south and east suburbs.
Academy, InterQuest and Tenderfoot cover the north, central and south of the city.
Harmony in Fort Collins and our Greeley clinic serve Larimer and Weld counties.
Across the Valley, from the West Valley through Phoenix to the East Valley.
At Mountain View Surgical Specialists, and in office at our Mesa and Westgate clinics. The Pain Management physician who sees you first is the one who arranges it.
Sooner rather than later. The procedure is aimed at recent fractures, and imaging is what confirms whether yours still qualifies.
Yes. It sets inside the vertebra and stays there, which is what gives the bone its stability back.
No. It treats one fractured bone. The underlying bone density needs its own attention, and that is worth raising at the same visit.
Short for most people. Normal movement is usually encouraged within a day or two, with heavy lifting deferred longer.
Yes, where imaging and the examination show more than one recent fracture contributing to the pain.
No. You can book an assessment directly for Pain Management, usually within the same week.
The pattern is suggestive — sudden onset, far worse standing than lying — but imaging is what settles it.
Kyphoplasty is performed at Mountain View Surgical Specialists, our surgery center in Denver. No referral is needed to be evaluated, and appointments are usually available within the same week.
