'Today' Host Goes Under the Knife in Surgery for Back Pain
Today host Carson Daly is back to work after undergoing surgery earlier in the week. Stepping back into Studio 1A on Thursday, Daly opened up about the procedure he underwent to help his "chronic lower back pain, telling viewers and co-hosts Savannah Guthrie, Hoda Kotb, Craig Melvin and Al Roker that he is feeling much "better" after undergoing a new minimally-invasive, FDA-approved procedure called Intracept.
Speaking with his co-stars, Daly shared, "I feel actually better and I'm glad that I did it." Although Daly acknowledged that "it's not a cure-all," he said the surgery was "a step in my journey that I think is going to help." The Today star, who is set to share more details about the procedure on the Today show next week, said he hopes his story will help others, sharing, "hopefully it'll help some people because there's some new technology out there that's definitely helped relieve me of some sharp pains."
The former MTV VJ went under the knife after years of suffering from back pain. Daly first began experiencing the pain following a snowmobiling accident while working for MTV in the '90s. Recalling that accident, Daly said it occurred as he was on location in Aspen, Colorado, explaining that "at the end of one of the days of shooting, I was on a snowmobile being shuttled down by ski patrol, and we got into, like, an accident." According to Daly, he was "knocked unconscious, and I kinda came to in the snow in a toboggan, really couldn't feel anything below my legs, one of those really scary moments."
Daly suffered a T12 compression fracture, "which in the world of back injuries is actually not that bad." At the time of the accident, doctors explained that his back was "structurally" unharmed and that pain management was his only option for relief. However, due to a bad reaction to pain medication, Daly knew he'd use them only as a "last resort."
Although Daly tried physical therapy, yoga, massages, and cupping for pain relief, his back pain grew more severe as time went on. Daly said his back pain "affected my interaction with my family. It really has. I could still pick my kids up when they were little. ... But one thing I love to do is just get down on the ground and let them jump on me and roll around and play." As the pain grew more severe, Carson opted to undergo the Intracept procedure, which targets the basivertebral nerve and takes less than an hour. Carson added, "I don't want to be in pain. I want to play golf, I want to wrestle with my kids. I want to pick things up. I want to be better."