Martial arts can be a great exercise activity — keeping the body healthy and the mind sharp. The benefits aren't without risk. In this video, one woman recounts the spine injury she suffered after taking a taekwondo class. The pain led to years of treatment and several cervical fusion surgeries. It wasn't until she met Top US Spine Surgeon, Dr. Hooman Melamed, that she was able to finally get relief. Dr. Melamed performed a first-of-its-kind surgery to repair damage to her neck and give her a new lease on life. 

Transcript:

We want to talk now about a young California woman's new lease on life, all thanks to a remarkable first-time surgery that gave her hope when a terrible martial arts injury left her with excruciating headaches and chronic neck pain. I took a taekwondo class in college. I got paired up against a guy who was like six two, and I'm five two, and he just like kicked me so hard, and it threw me across the floor, made me black out, got up, and I was like oh my gosh, like I was crying. 25-year-old Lauren Butler says that incident was the start of a three-year nightmare. At first, doctors told her she had whiplash and prescribed pain pills for her injuries. Made me like feel a little bit better, but like didn't heal anything.  I did massage therapy, physical therapy, and shots in my neck to try to help the pain. I did like pretty much everything you could do besides have surgery. It took a year for Lauren to get approval for an MRI, and when she did she was told you need surgery like your discs are all messed up. Beginning in March of 2017, Lauren underwent two separate surgeries within a year. Doctors fusing two different levels of vertebrae in her neck, it was also discovered that Lauren had been born with yet another level of fused vertebrae. Unfortunately, after the surgeries, Lauren had a numbness in her arm when she ran or turned her head. Lauren also had a limited range of motion in her neck and still had pain, headaches, and trouble sleeping. It just hurt all the time. Lauren was in Ohio when all of this happened, but she moved to Anaheim for work two years ago. There, she researched and found Marina Del Rey orthopedic spine surgeon, Dr. Hooman Melamed, who was shocked after reviewing her case. My jaw dropped. I was like wow there was like one sheet of bone. Basically, humans only have seven neck vertebrae so another fusion was out of the question. She's already miserable and she would have been just a lifetime of permanent pain disability, limited motion, unable to have a normal life. Dr Melamed proposed a surgery that's never been done before, whereby he would break apart Lauren's fusions and put in artificial discs. Telling her you can basically live a normal life if we can't recreate that anatomy. Lauren agreed to this surgery that requires exact precision with the doctor working dangerously close to a main artery. I'm talking like a millimeter away the big red the vertebral artery, which is one of the main arteries that goes into your brain and supplies your brain. So that was nerve-wracking, nerve-wracking for sure, but in the end the surgery a complete success. I was beyond thrilled and it was like the best feeling. I'm really happy with results. I have not had any neck pain or like stabbing down my arm. I'm able to work out and go on hikes, and like I don't get terrible headaches and like I can sleep normal and I got my full range of motion back and like I could look up and down like everything is normal. I don't even know what could have happened if I didn't find Dr. Melamed. I'm so happy I found him. Dr. Melamed says he takes an integrative, holistic approach to medicine, focusing on lifestyle and nutrition, and does not prescribe narcotics now. To learn more about the doctor and his philosophy, you can check him out on his website at thespinepro.com.