Carl Nieders' back hurt him for 45 years, and just recently, he's gotten some relief.

"Get rid of that sciatic nerve pain because that's what's bothered me all of these years. If I stand too long, if I could walk or move I'm okay but if I had to stand too long for 15 or 20 minutes, that's when it would start hurting," said Nieders.

Dr. Craig Meyer, new to the Columbia Orthopedic Group, brought a new approach to spinal surgery when he came to the area.

"It's a new way of doing an old surgery. It's a new technique. We're approaching the spine through the side instead of upfront or the back, you're just avoiding huge muscle dissection," stated Meyer.

The XLIF approach cuts out a lot of recovery time and is a minimally invasive procedure, not something you usually associate with a spinal surgery.

"Compared to traditional procedures, where you have to do a large open incision in the back and move all of the muscles off the bone or you go through the front and make a large incision, move all of the abdominal contents to the side, we avoid all of that," explained Meyer.

Since the spinal surgery usually involves a large incision and a lengthy recovery, older back and leg pain suffers like Nieders were usually not good candidates to receive it.

"70 or 80-year-old patients that you'd normally say, "Stay away from spine surgery," said Meyer.

"The pain down the right leg has been going on for 45 years, and I just now found a doctor who said I needed surgery and thank god, it really helps," stated Nieders.

The minimally invasive spine surgery works best in cases of deformities or degenerative problems that are causing nerve pain.The typical recovery time is three weeks instead of three months and patients are usually up and walking the same day.