“Stay away from back surgery.”
When Steve Kerr offered that frank, take-it-from-me advice to others suffering from back problems, the Golden State Warriors coach turned himself into Exhibit No. 1 for the potential complications from back surgery and sent a chill through waiting rooms in surgery centers throughout the country.
But is what happened to the coach common?
It’s “certainly not in the majority of cases,” said Dr. Lionel Metz, an assistant professor of orthopedic surgeon at UC San Francisco. “It’s on the order of a couple percentage (points) of these type of cases have cerebrospinal fluid leaks.