Ironically, now that I’m in my 40s, I felt like I was in the best shape of my life. That is, until back and neck discomfort started to dominate my life at the beginning of this season, season 8 of The Doctors.
I’ve been active as long as I can remember, riding my bike, going for runs, and it became so ingrained in me. A year ago I started to notice back spasms and neck spasms, and I had a big trip to Europe planned to ride through the Alps. And I rode, I rode, and I got in great shape, and I just ignored all the spasms despite all the pain, and I guess thought it would just go away. But I was wrecking my back.
The second week of season eight, I woke up in the middle of the night and my arm was numb. Hosting, I sat on the left side, and all day long, every time I turned my head right, my arm would go numb. We switched my seat on stage, new chair, but the numbness went on. I would go lay down during briefings, massage all day long with rollers. Sitting, no, I, I couldn’t fly on a plane, and that’s when I knew something wasn’t right.
Dr. Melamed was on the show, and I, I just said, look, I don’t want to be an alarmist, but my arm has been numb.
I said, Travis, don’t be stupid, you need to get an MRI.
No one likes to go to the doctor, including me, but just ignoring this isn’t going to heal it. I was hoping it would show something that was just minimal.
It’s all blocking here. There was impingement on my right C7 nerve root, and that’s the nerve that, of course, right where I was feeling all the numbness. We go here, see here how you see the left side here, the forehead going here. You’re not see, there’s a disc here, and then there’s a little fragment that’s basically looks like it’s pushed out. That explains the tricep weakness. We can do a microsurgery, clean up that area, you know, in and out, like, it takes about an hour to do it.
It’s kind of sobering, because I don’t like the idea of surgery. I’m not 23 anymore, I’m 43. I have to change my ways. Are there what I would do, conservative things that you can do?
You can do a lot of traction, some acupuncture, can try, you know, some soft tissue work. I’ve had patients like this who turn the corner.
Not necessarily what I wanted to hear today. Hopefully conservative treatments work. If not, I’ll be going under the knife.
I would like everyone to welcome Dr. Melamed to the show. And, you know, I visited you, that was back at the beginning of season eight, but your words, which were so profound to me, were, Travis, if you don’t address this, your nerve could be shot for life. So I want to thank you for encouraging me to come see you.
Thank you, thank you, thanks.
But you, you sobered me up when you showed me the MRI and you showed that there was definitely a reason for my, my numbness and my pain.
You had the classic symptoms, which is numbness, pain, stiffness, radiating pain, and the weakness. When you have nerve pressure, you could get any of these symptoms, but you had all of them. And the key was not ignoring them, because you don’t want permanent nerve damage.
Lesson I learned here is you, you never ignore numbness. Numbness and weakness, not a whole lot’s going on right when that occurs, is that fair to say?
Absolutely. I mean, you don’t want to ignore that, because if you ignore that, at some point that is going to become irreversible. You’ll never get it back. So don’t ignore your body, listen to your body, get the appropriate treatment and hit it hard. And the good news is ninety percent of people get better without surgery, ultimately.
And I’m, I’m thankful to you. You’re a surgeon, and obviously you saw a look on my face when you talked about doing a surgery, and you said, look, I’m gonna give you three weeks to start some rehab, to see if we can start to improve these symptoms, and if you’re going in the right direction…
That’s right.
…we can potentially avoid surgery, which is coming from a surgeon, which was really great, because you, you got me motivated that day. And due to Dr. Melamed’s advice, he recommended everything from acupuncture to seeing a chiropractor to rehab, physical therapy. So I took his advice, went running with it. That’s coming up next.
As doctors, we do all we can to stay healthy, but we can’t control everything. And for the past two years, our own Dr. Travis has been living with debilitating pain, both on the camera and off the camera.
I’ve been active as long as I can remember. A year ago I started to notice back spasms and neck spasms, and I had a big trip to Europe planned to ride through the Alps. And I rode, I rode, and I got in great shape, but I was wrecking my back. The second week of season eight, I woke up in the middle of the night and my arm was numb. I would go lay down during briefings, massage all day long with rollers. I was doing acupuncture, chiropractic, massage and rehab exercises three times a week. Sitting, no, I, I couldn’t fly on a plane, and that’s when I knew something wasn’t right.
Dr. Melamed was on the show, and I just said, look, I don’t want to be an alarmist, but my arm has been numb.
I said, Travis, don’t be stupid, you need to get an MRI.
Just ignoring this isn’t going to heal it.
It’s all blocking here. There was impingement on my right C7 nerve root, and that’s the nerve that, of course, right where I was feeling all the numbness. Then there’s a little fragment that’s basically looks like it’s pushed out. That explains the tricep weakness. We can do microsurgery, clean out that area, you know, in and out, like, it takes about an hour to do it.
Not necessarily what I wanted to hear today. Hopefully conservative treatments worked. If not, I’ll be going under the knife.
It’s nice having you on as a guest.
Well, thank you, sir.
You know, you, sir, connected at the hip. We’ve been doing this for 10 years and I’ve been with you every step of the way through this. I know, difficult, God bless you.
Well, you have been a pain in the butt.
But legitimately, you, I mean, you had a real issue, and it really was taking over your life the last three months.
I couldn’t even lay down to sleep at night. I couldn’t get through a day hosting the show without being in pain. And that’s what made me realize earlier this season, when we started taping, I just couldn’t do it anymore, because it just, I was at the point where I [inaudible]. The, the pain would just go down through my back, and then weakness, numbness in the arm, and it just, just got it, you know.
Every time I looked at it, you were trying to work it out some way, either stretching or turning a certain way, or, or trying to open things up. What, what was the final breaking point for you? Because it seems like you tried everything.
You went… I didn’t want to have, when I didn’t, for years I did not want to have surgery, because the truth is, I don’t think anyone wants to be put to sleep to have surgery, to go with the, through the recovery. But it was on this stage, I remember sitting here, and the, the pain was there just like it’d been there two years ago, and I’m thinking, you know what, I’m, I’m 45. I don’t want to live like this anymore. And so when I made that decision, there was no turning back. I guess it was pretty easy, because Dr. Melamed has become such a, a close colleague and friend of ours. We know the kind of work he did well. And when I went, I got to tell you, when I went back to see Dr. Melamed and finally made the decision, what’s interesting is the surgery I wanted was the least invasive one possible. And when he opened up the book where he wrote a chapter on this particular surgery, I knew I had my guy.
Yeah, if he’s written a chapter, it’s a good thing.
Well, clearly our own Dr. Travis was experiencing intense pain, and we taped our first shows of the season. He had to head into surgery almost immediately, so we’re going to take you inside the operating room with Dr. Travis.
We are back, and joining us now is board certified orthopedic spine surgeon, our friend and colleague, Dr. Hooman Melamed. And before you find out how Dr. Travis did, Dr. Melamed, you’re going to take us through the operation right here and show us exactly what you did for Travis.
We’re looking at the spine model. This is the head here, the pelvis here, and there’s seven vertebrae in the neck, number one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. The problem was on the right side, between the sixth and seventh vertebrae, where the seventh nerve root was getting trapped in here. And you can see how the nerve comes from the spinal cord, starts going out, and there was a little piece of a bone spur that was growing, and it was digging into the nerve, and that’s the area that needed to be cleaned up. And you had the disc from the bottom pushing a little bit, and the nerve was getting sandwiched. So we basically want to clean up the spur, allow more room for the nerve to go through.
You’re in there with your loupes doing this under my…
Microscope.
And, and so I haven’t seen any of this, but what I’m amazed by is how small the incision was to get in there and then open it up and do what you did.
So here’s the surgery. We started the incision. The whole thing is not under the microscope, so we are carefully separating the soft tissue. We’re getting down, basically finding, to the bone, to the area I was talking about. And now we’re identifying the area and we put the little retractor there, which is very small, it’s less than half an inch. And now we’re going to take extra… You can see the size of the incision. It’s a, it’s about a three-quarter of an inch, so band-aid surgery. So yes, under the microscope. And now we identify, you have to know you’re at the right level. So we have the instruments, and we’re at the right level, we took the x-rays.
Oh, you’re making it sound so simple, and I got to tell you here…
Look, we’re drilling. We’re drilling, basically. You can see the drill is the tip of a pen. It’s very small. So we’re drilling, getting down to the spur right there, and we identify, and now I’m biting where I was showing the little biting…
Right next to my spinal cord. This is when you’re really happy that your doctor knows what he or she is exactly…
So now we’re removing the pieces of the bone there. You can see I’m removing the little remaining of the fleck of the bone. And now we’re going underneath, identifying where the disc is. So we’re identifying the plane. The spinal cord is right there and the nerve root is right there. We are working in about a two millimeter area. So I’m sweeping under the nerve, looking at the disc right now, making sure nothing is pressing.
And so you’re basically freeing up that nerve. This is such, I have to say, even though that’s my neck and my, my spinal cord, it’s fascinating to watch. And the one thing…
So we’re just putting in, stopping the bleeding. We’re done, basically.
Do you have some of that left? Can I put it on a necklace or something?
Yeah. So these are, these are the instruments, how small it is, basically. So this is what we’re doing.
The term bone spurs, yeah, it’s, it’s, for the viewers out there, just really means an overgrowth of bone. Is that related to wear and tear, or…
Yes, it’s an overgrowth.
Why does that happen? He was talking about it.
I mean, nobody knows why. Why didn’t it happen at the level above? Why did it happen here?
Really, going back in time, it was my five years before I came on The Doctors as a Chippendales dancer. They had me doing all these…
All right, the truth comes out.
Yeah, right.
How are you feeling?
I look, I am just a few weeks out from this, and obviously post-op, you, you dissecting those neck muscles, a lot of spasms. But I got to tell you, it’s amazing. I can actually lay down with my head on a pillow at night and not be in the pre-op pain, and it is a remarkable feeling. I’m so full of hope again. Obviously I can’t get back to doing the things I want to do yet. You’ve told me I gotta, you know, recover and then get back to biking and hopefully all the things, weeks away.
Three more weeks. Three more weeks, you’re done.
Because for me, the hardest part of this has been I can’t do the things I love to do. So beyond the numbness, the pain, you not being able to do the things you love to do in life, there comes a point where enough’s enough. So thank you, sir.
Thank you.
Thank you. The show had to go on, and I know that you sucked it up. Congrats to both of you.
Great, thank you.
