Melissa Gilbert calls spinal surgery ‘wildly successful’ in health update

The “Little House on the Prairie” star shared her health update with her Instagram followers on Thursday.

Actress Melissa Gilbert had her fourth spinal surgery and afterward called the operation “wildly successful.”

The 56-year-old “Little House on the Prairie” star shared her health update with her 94,200 Instagram followers Thursday.

“Surgery was wildly successful! Dr. Bray was able to remove all the old hardware, shave off bone spurs causing numbness in my right hand and, and, and, he was able to give me the artificial disc,” Gilbert captioned a post-surgery photo of herself smiling. “So now I focus on recovery and remaining Covid free. Thank you all for your love, support and prayers. I send so much love back to you all.”

Earlier in the week, Gilbert told her followers she was scheduled to undergo surgery to relieve the constant pain.

“I’ve now reached the point where the pain is nearly constant and the fingers on my right hand are beginning to tingle,” she wrote in a separate post Monday.

Despite having surgery in 2016, the hardware in Gilbert’s C7 vertebra was “boring a hole,” the actress shared. She reportedly learned she needed another surgery in April but had to delay the operation due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Gilbert flew to California to get her spinal surgery done by Dr. Robert Bray, the same doctor who worked on her first fusion after she broke her back in 2001. Bray, a neurological spine surgeon has corrected spinal issues for other stars. In July, he gave “Silicon Valley” actor Ben Feldman two artificial discs.

The last surgery Gilbert had was needed after sustaining two head and neck injuries that herniated two discs in her spine. She hit her head while on “Dancing with the Stars” in 2012 and suffered a “mild concussion.” Four years later, a balcony from one of the houses she was renting collapsed and hit her head, which ultimately ended her congressional run in Michigan.