My practice is 100% committed to the spine surgery. I’ve done over 5,000 surgeries, and I always pride myself trying to basically always get better. Every surgery I do, I’m always thinking, even if it weren’t perfect, how could I have even done it even better? So for those reasons, I’ve gone around the world and observed other spine surgeons in Asia, South America and also in the United States, been able to put them all together and learn a little bit from each one of them, and develop my own technique that has allowed me try to excel in the field of spine surgery.
The first and most important thing, I always try to figure out how we can help the patient without doing surgery, and I think 90% of the patients will benefit from not having surgery. But I’m very excited about more also incorporating holistic medicine. When you treat a patient, you’re looking at the whole patient, not just the actual spine itself. So I started realizing that if the patient is not optimized, they’re not gonna do well, no matter who does the surgery. And I also realized that a lot of reasons sometimes conservative modalities fail is because the patient is not medically, the body’s not optimized to get better. So I started looking into this, and I started working, branching into integrative and functional medicine, and I started basically incorporating that into my practice.
We started realizing that if you don’t take care of your body now, you’re gonna end up a whole, forget about just a spine, but you’re gonna not only, not spine problems, but a lot of other problems. All the patients who come in to see me now, it doesn’t matter whether you’re new or follow up, we started to talk to patients about what I call an anti-inflammatory diet, really focus on nutrition. I realized that food is very powerful. You are what you eat. It is very true, because since I incorporated food modification in my own lifestyle for past four years, I feel like I’m 20 years younger. I heal a lot better for my injuries, and I’m more awake, my concentration is better, my memory is better. We talked about anti-inflammatory, holistic medication, homeopathic medications like fish oil, turmeric, ginger approach.
And also, you know, especially if you’re having surgery, every patient that has surgery, everybody needs lab work done, no question about it. But I incorporate my own version of lab work, which I feel is absolutely imperative for the patient’s overall post-op recovery. Recently I have advanced on that. I have been using now no narcotics on any patients, unless the patient has no allergies and they don’t have any history of narcotic use. It has been unbelievable. I mean, it has blown the nurses away, the anesthesiologist has been shocked, the patients are shocked. They’re like, how is this possible? I’ve done massive spine surgery, like full scoliosis surgery, with no narcotics, which is unprecedented. Nobody has ever heard of this before to this degree.
On top of that, I’ve also started implementing stem cells for the last three years with an excellent, excellent success. So we have gone from using the patient’s own stem cells now to start also using amniotic umbilical cord live stem cells. So a lot of the cases that we just used to, for example, the patient needs surgery, now some of the cases we can treat the patients with stem cells alone. I’ve had many patients they came to me with a combination of this holistic approach in stem, so I mean 80% of the pain is better. So I’m very proud of being able to incorporate this holistic with the stem cell and always advancing the fields of techniques in spine surgery.
Artificial disc replacement has become a very huge part of my practice as well. Before we do neck surgery fusion, now we can do a lot of artificial disc replacements instead and save the patient’s from future surgery down the road. Another thing, what I call a roto-rooter surgery, and avoiding any, any fusion or artificial discs, I’ve been able to help the patients doing it as an outpatient instead of a massive, you know, big surgery. And also doing more less invasive lumbar lower back surgery instead of the traditional fusion or laminectomies.
I’ve also come up with a way of doing adult scoliosis with one technique, one approach, where we can do the surgery and be done in few hours, patients going home in three to four days. And again, I remember I said no narcotics. Again, I have a special diet for the patients in the hospital, what I call it maximize the anti-inflammatory diet. I feel these are the things that I’ve incorporated into my practice, more of a holistic, integrative and a functional approach. This is what I pride myself for, being able to offer the patients more than just seeing a surgeon. You’re getting a full comprehensive approach.
