The human spine is, of course, the electric power cord of our body, sending millions of nerve impulses at a split second to do things like move your hand away from things like a hot stove. So neck and back surgeries are among the scariest for patients, yet the doctors who perform them know they’re a matter of bone, nerves, tissue and water. Joining us this morning with what we should know about three common back and neck surgeries is Dr. Hooman Melamed, a board-certified orthopedic spine surgeon. Good morning.
Morning, guys.
[inaudible] you for being here. So, good, with the four most common causes of neck and back pain. [inaudible]
So one of the things is a lot of people get hurt, they do sports or they bend down to pick up something, you know, muscle strain.
Yeah, like you kind of pull your muscle.
Like a pulled muscle, just like you pull your hamstrings, you know, pulled muscle. Pinched nerve, you know, a lot of people say, oh, I feel like something pinched. Degenerative disc disease, you know, basically, or disc issues, or two, joint in your spine. You know, our spine has joints in the back, basically the little joints in the back, just like a finger joint, that could be a source of the pain. And of course if somebody has, you know, a lot of people are like, you see, crooked, they have scoliosis, or pinched or curved over, you know, different alignment problems could be all sorts of pain.
One of the big questions I think people have when they have ailments, if you will, is they want to decide whether or not they should have surgery, and you’re here to tell us about a non-invasive procedure called a Roto-Rooter.
Sure, that’s the layman’s term. But good news first. I want to make it very clear that 80% of people who have spine issues, ninety percent of us do not end up needing surgery.
Mm-hm.
Sort of great news. Is it unnecessary surgery spent?
Unfortunately, yes. So I think some, a lot of times. Good news, 90% people do not need to. That’s very important, because just because you have a problem, people are like, well, how is it problem gonna go? Well, your body can fix it, you can help it get it better. So if you gonna do surgery, another good news, most of the surgeries can be done with the Roto-Rooter we talked about.
Okay.
Roto-Rooter is like, exactly, you’re getting in basically the area of a pinched nerve. Let’s say this nerve that are coming out of the spinal, you have a disc or bowed, you’re just doing a little clean-out. It’s like a little tip of the pen. You go with the microscope in and you do a clean-out, outpatient, or you can with an endoscope do a little clean.
Looking at an image there, that’s incredible.
Yeah, and patients, and you know, some of these surgeries can be done as small as in half an hour to an hour. Our patients, patient go home. Like you can see, they’re making a little, that’s the endoscope they’re showing, making a little, it’s about a quarter of an inch incision. You go down there with little microscopic tools and you start doing the work. A little bit, you know, it’s a little bit more involved in animation, but it’s still, in the right hands it’s done very well. Those patients are candidate for that operation, you go home the same day, you’re back to work in few days and you’re driving in a few days, you know. In about a month or so you start physical therapy, and then when you graduate, you’re back to sports. That’s most of the patients.
Need a little… We want to ask you about the artificial disc replacement, the causes that someone would need it and how it’s performed.
So the artificial disc, if you look at the spine model here, we all have discs, which is, these are the vertebrates here, and in between are the discs, the shock absorbers, just like you have cushion in your knees, your hips, your ankles. So the artificial disc means that the disc is damaged, it’s the source of the pain, it’s causing you the problem. So you take the disc out and you basically, as they’re showing in the animation, and you can move your neck.
Wow.
I think you have the animation.
Yeah.
You put an artificial disc in here.
Yeah.
You removed it, some metal and plastic, sometimes metal and metal, and allows you to move around, basically. That’s another one that a lot of patients, if they’re not candidate for Roto-Rooter, this is another great option. It retains your motion and allows you to be very functional with very little follow-up after. Very back. It’s outpatient too, most of it is done outpatients.
One of the scariest diagnosis, as I’m told, is a spine fusion.
So spine fusion has gotten a very bad rap. You know, my late father, he had spine fusion done. You know, I think fusion in the right hands for the right reasons, it’s the best, it’s a great operation. As you can see, you’re putting the screws in there, you know, you’re trying to get two vertebrates to basically fuse together, like mend them together, so it doesn’t move. You take a motion segment away, and you can see the animation they’re showing, it’s non, minimally invasive. A lot of fusion can be done also as outpatients, with patient going back to work in a few days and very little blood loss, very small recovery, usually back to physical therapy in about two months, basically. It’s exactly, you see on the animation, you have literally how big the screw, this is a real screws that are actually using in patients, and you have a cage here that goes inside the vertebra and then it locks together, basically. The right, as I said, my late father had it done, and in the right hands for the right reason it’s a great operation if it’s necessary for the patients.
Appreciate you coming in this morning. Thank you very much for [inaudible] the options for all of us. Once again, Dr. Hooman Melamed is a board-certified spine surgeon. For more information about back pain topics, you can follow him on Twitter and Instagram. Thank you so much.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
