Who is Helping my Surgeon?
As a patient, when you go into an orthopaedic surgeon’s office for your appointment, it is usually not the surgeon that first greets you and brings you into the examination room. You are often asked a barrage of questions about why you have come in and often are asked about your medical history. So who […]
Cervical Foraminotomy
What is Cervical Foraminotomy? In my prior blogs, we discussed cervical radiculopathy, or in simple terms, a pinched nerve in the neck. Usually, there is associated pain, numbness and tingling corresponding to the distribution of the pinched nerves functions. As we discussed before, these nerves can have a distribution of sensation called dermatomes, as well […]
When is Spine Pain an Emergency?
So often we hear from people who are upset with Emergency Rooms because they feel their neck or back pain was not treated with the seriousness it deserved. A traumatic event such as a bad fall or a serious car accident with any sign of severe pain, or abnormal neurological signs such as paralysis, should […]
Sacroiliitis
The sacroiliac joint is the joint which connects the hip bone with the iliac bone on either side of the lumbar spine. When there is inflammation of this joint it is called Sacroiliitis. Pain is usually worse after staying in one position for any length of time. Moderate movement is actually helpful. Diseases that can […]
Microdiscectomy Surgery
What exactly is Microdiscectomy? In the simplest terms, it means removal of disc material that is pinching a nerve, using small incisions and with magnification. In the United States, there is an average of 300,000 discectomy type surgeries performed per year. For the vast majority of patients, the reason for microdisectomy is PAIN, despite treatments such […]
Minimally Invasive Discectomy vs Micro/Open Discectomy
We’ve all heard of “Minimally Invasive Discectomy” as it is used as a marketing ploy almost everywhere. Everyone has a different description of what minimally invasive actually is. Some consider MIS as surgery being done through small incisions, with less dissection, and therefore less pain, and faster recovery. With that criteria, many of the spine […]
