Hello, everybody, this is [inaudible] Beautiful Life, and we can integrate ourselves to make our life is more beautiful and beautiful. And but when your body got the pain, you have to say the doctor. But today we are invited one of the doctor. He always helps the patients to get the back and leg, and he is a spine surgery doctors. He is a doctor, Hooman Melamed. So welcome to our [inaudible] show with the Doctor Hooman Melamed. And I think this is your first time to get interviewed by the Asian TV stations.
That’s correct.
Yeah. When I read your biography, I found you are a leading, one of the [inaudible] spine surgery who has gained international reputations and for helping patients with the back and leg conditions became active and the pain-free lives. But what does mean, you have been able to treat 90 percentage of the plus of your patients without surgery and with excellent outcomes?
Yes. So 80 percent of the world population, 80 percent of people in their lifetime, they get back pain at some point in their lifetime. People end up getting some, some kind of back pain. 80 percentage of that, 80 people in the world, doesn’t matter Asia, Africa, Europe, South America, North America, doesn’t matter, everybody, I have back pain, everybody gets it. The good news is that 90% of people don’t need surgery. You can help people get better without surgery. Initially pain could be very bad, but good news, most patients can get better without surgery by doing, for example, chiropractic treatments, acupuncture, massage, physical therapy, very critical. Now we have Pilates, you know, plyometric exercises. If those don’t work, then we can do maybe epidural steroid injections or something. We have even better now is doing stem cells, or we can take patients’ own stem cells, or we now have amniotic baby stem cells from the baby that you can inject to allow the people to get better and avoid surgery. So that’s how you can avoid surgery on 90% of the patients.
Yeah, I’d agree, because, you know, I have an experience maybe more than 10 years ago. Yes, I have a very painful in my back. When I driving, when I sleep, when I get up, oh, I got a lot of painful. So I decided to [inaudible] to the floor for six months. After six months, my pain is gone. So it is a seem like you see, a little bit like you will see about that ninety percentage of the patients [inaudible], they can get some suggestion, they can fix by themselves.
Yes, absolutely. So your situation is very common. A lot of people have, like you, get back pain, they can’t sit at work, they can’t drive, they can exercise, they get this. But you know, you kind of did, had somebody do deep massage by walking on you, which I would not recommend. You know, it’s better to have a professional deal with that so you don’t get hurt, basically.
But you know, for example, sleeping at nighttime. You know, everybody sleeps about six to eight hours at night, so it’s very important to sleep in the right position. For example, a lot of people sleep the wrong way. Sleeping, for example, on your stomach, it’s not sometimes ideal situation. Best, best position is usually laying on your back flat. Will put pillows on your knees, your heels, you know, put pillows around your shoulders to cushion your body so your back is well rested.
Other things to do: you sit at work. A lot of people sit at work on the computer, they start doing this. That’s not good. You have to see, basically, supporting your, your core muscles and having a very, like, tighten your posture, so you’re not becoming like loading up your spine sitting in this position, basically. Things like, a lot of people are looking down on their phone all the time, you know, texting.
Yeah.
That’s not good. You know, bring the phone here, you know, play around with it here, you know, things like that. Like little things during the day, you watch out your posture, basically, when you sleep, at work, can go a long way helping you. And engage in a consistent exercise program, low-impact aerobics and, you know, Pilates, core exercises, like three times a week, you should be fine for the rest of your life.
Okay. Thank you for telling me. So I want to ask you, most of, when, when I was a kid, our parents always tell me, don’t sleep in the soft of the bed. And as being the very experienced, the expert of the spine surgery doctors, what are you suggesting today? Many people, even our audience, and most time we slept the soft bed or hard bed?
You know, as I said, it all depends on, like, for example, my parents, their bed is very firm. I cannot sleep on that bed. It’s very uncomfortable, you know. Then my uncle, he has a water bed. He sleeps on a water bed, which is very comfortable for him. It’s hard to tell soft or hard, because it depends on your body shape, how tall are you, how big your shoulders are, your buttock, your, it all depends on that. The key is, you know, if you’re sleeping the right way, if you wake up, you feel very fresh. If you wake up and you’re, you’re hurting, my back hurts, my shoulder hurts, my, my neck hurts, that’s where I have a change of it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So everything depends on how you feel.
That’s exactly.
Where you feel comfortable or you’re not uncomfortable.
That’s exactly right.
Okay. So, Doctor [inaudible]. Yeah, you, you want people call your [inaudible]?
[inaudible] Dr. Hooman is fine.
[inaudible] Okay. So I know when, when, before I met you, I, we’ve never seen each other, but I heard of you, a very celebrated doctor, and I did the homework. I saw a lot of the videos from the YouTube and Google. You get a lot of interviews by, like, The Doctors, like the Fox and Friends.
Yes.
Like Dr. Oz, like the [inaudible].
Yeah.
So you have the very usually funny program, and you even, you get the interview a lot of times by doctors.
Yes.
[inaudible] host is a Dr. Travis.
Correct.
Even I saw one video, you get the surgery for Dr. Travis.
That’s correct.
I don’t know that story. What happened there?
So I got to know Dr. Travis going on the show, being invited on the show, and then he started talking to me, and he said, you know, I’ve got this neck problem, you know. I was like, so he came to me, we got an MRI. He had a little area pinched nerve in his neck, pinching on his right side. And he basically was scared of surgery. Let’s try non-surgery. He tried it for about a year and a half, didn’t get better. Pinch, you know, he’s just constantly doing this. Couldn’t sleep at night time. He could not sleep at night time, wake him up, the pain. His arm would go numb on him, and he would start getting some, a little weakness.
Finally he was like, let’s do surgery. So he came to me. He asked what surgery I would do. I said, Dr. Travis, very small 30-minute surgery. Go in the back, in the back of the neck, make a little opening. He told me that he saw other spine surgeons who wanted to do something more. They wanted to do a fusion or artificial disc, big surgery, much bigger surgery. I told them microscopic, minimally invasive. So we went, basically, 30 minutes in the back, make a little opening and open up the hole, relieve the pinched nerve. 30-minute surgery. He went home in like two, three hours later. Recovered very fast, back to work within 10 days.
Now, he waited a long time, for like two years, before he had surgery with a pinched nerve, so his recovery took a little bit, like the pinched nerve took a while to recover. But you know, he’s going to be back to doing everything. He’s doing everything now, no restrictions at all. I actually wrote a book chapter on how to do the procedure, because not that many people know how to do it. So it’s teach other people how to do the procedure.
I would like everyone to welcome Dr. Melamed to the show. And, you know, I’m visiting 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, radiant 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.
Wow. So right now, this is a good, good, good, perfect. I saw your video. A lot of patients, there is a celebrity people, there are athletes, there’s a young girl or old woman, old people. You still help them. You still do surgery, help them. Like the very before they see, they saw you, they are found very bad. Even some people cannot walk. That’s after the surgery, they can walk. They can’t right away to [inaudible] miraculous, [inaudible] to me. I like that. So you’re like a magic.
Thank you. Thank you.
So I just want to, so when you do [inaudible], do you do a [inaudible] surgery to your patients? What do you think about that?
First, you try how can you get the patient better without surgery. Okay, very important. You always try to think, what can I do to get the patient better without surgery? Let’s say that’s not an option, you have to do surgery. I take every surgery very, very seriously. You have to think about the surgery. It’s not like you get in the car and drive. I think about every surgery. The bigger the surgery, the more I think about it. Before the surgery, the night before, the week before, I start thinking. You plan the surgery in your head. It’s like a video. I start planning in the head exactly what I’m doing. Keep playing the video in my head over and over again for the bigger surgery. So then you plan it perfectly.
Very important, I focus on one surgery at a time. Meaning, there are some doctors who are running two or three rooms at the same time, doing three surgery at the same time. No good. Cannot do that. It’s not fair to the patient. So I focus one surgery at a time, and I don’t do a lot of surgeries in one day, because I want to be fresh. You focus, concentration on the patient, have to do perfect job on the patient. And every surgery, I think about how I could have done the surgery better afterwards. So I always think, what can I do to make it better? What can I do to make it more improved? So you approach the surgery as though I’m operating on my own brother, my own mother, my own father. And you approach the surgery in a way, and I feel most of the surgeries, you end up hitting your home run. You do, patients do great.
Yeah, I saw that video. He’s feel very perfect right now. Yeah. Somehow you are, right now you are celebrate doctor. The people call you super doctor, they call you top doctors. Before you’re famous, after you’re famous, how do you think your life, how different your life is before you’re famous, after [inaudible]?
My personal life, honestly, has not changed. I’m still who I am, you know. I’m not, you know, it’s one of those things, it doesn’t go into my head, you know. I’m still the same guy I was 10 years ago, 20 years ago. I’m still the same guy. It has, my practice has gotten very busy. A lot of phone calls from patients, from all over the country, out of the countries. I’m getting a lot of patients calling in, so that has gotten very busy. But my personal life, no, I’m still the same. I’m still the same guy. People know me the same way as I was before.
Yes. And I just want to know, what do you think of the beautiful life? Like, I know you are very busy. You, you lead a lot of people, [inaudible] how many hours you work?
You may ask. So as I’ve gotten busier, some days I’m working as much as 12, 14 hours a day. 12 to 14 hours a day. Sometimes I work 80 hours a week. It’s, you know, people, it depends on the…
Yeah, yeah.
Exactly. You know, I’m always, as I said, I’m always thinking how I can improve on things. For example, the big, big surgeries, I figured out a way how to do the surgery shorter amount of time, less blood loss, faster recovery, and out of the hospital in three to four days instead of a week, basically. So I’m always coming up with techniques on how to improve, you know, patient’s outcome after surgery. So this is very gratifying for me, when patients come and they hug you and they write a letter to you, thank you, they write a review. This is what I love about doing. If I win the lottery tomorrow, I’m not going to stop working. I would just treat, you know, I would just work and treat as many people for free as I can.
That means you enjoy your life.
I love, you, enjoy your job.
You love your job. That’s very good. Like I love my talk show.
Yes.
I love it. Before we start our talk show, you show me the video or shoot me the picture, you just help the one patient. Oh, I saw that [inaudible].
Yes.
Just like they all, that’s like the, oh my goodness. But you make the surgery, making them recover everything. So you told me you were taking the eight hours to do the surgery.
That’s correct.
So making me surprised how the person can do the one job continue to eight hours. Wow. So you leave that very good yourself, really very preparing everything. So could you tell me a little bit, describable after, how you can do the eight hours for one person?
Do that, number one, you have to, you have to love what you do. You have to love what you do, and you have to have passion for it. You have to have that, because if you have love and passion, doesn’t matter, you can concentrate. So the night before, I always get a good night’s sleep, and I’m always exercising. I always exercise to keep in very good shape. As much as I am, since I’m still relatively young, try to be in good shape as I can. Eat well, exercise, sleep well, love my job, and have passion, and eight hours goes like that. You don’t even think. I’m not even looking at the clock. You just get the job, you’re like, oh, okay, eight hours. So, and it’s like, it’s so gratifying. I can actually, I cannot sleep that night, because I’m so pumped up. I’m so excited about how great the surgery went.
So you, our interview today make me think my talk show topic, don’t you? If we want to make our life is beautiful, we have to make ourselves the beautiful.
That’s right.
If you want to help the people, your life is the people, you first, you have to make yourself.
That’s right. That’s right.
I got it, a point from you. When you were kid, you want to be the doctor, or you would just want to do that another things? How, when did you begin to have an idea when you want to be a doctor?
I wanted to be a doctor before I even started school, because my father, my father was a doctor in my country. I’m from Iran. He was a doctor in Iran, and he was in charge of the emergency room. So I would go with him when I was six or seven years old. I would see, you know, patients with him, and I loved it. I loved science, and [inaudible], I loved it. So I, I was like, I want to be a doctor. I was very good in science. I didn’t think about anything other than being a doctor from the time I was six years old. So I wanted to be a doctor.
Then we moved to the United States when I was 12 years old. 12 years old, years already came here, and I knew I wanted to be a doctor. I went to high school, and I fell in love with neurosurgery, with brain. I fell in love with the brain, basically. I loved, I said, I want to be a neurosurgeon, basically. I love the brain. So in college, I actually went to UCLA in college, and I majored in neuroscience, thinking I’m going to be a neurosurgeon. But UCLA did not have neuroscience major. I talked to the neuroscience department for graduate school. I petitioned. I created the major.
Then my second year, I took physics, biomechanics, as part of the requirement for medical school, and I fell in love with biomechanics. My uncle, my, my, which is my mom’s brother, at the time was doing his orthopedic spine surgery fellowship, and he told me there’s a lot of connection between physics and orthopedic surgery and spine. I’m like, really? He said, yeah, this is what you should do. So the next summer, between my second and third year college, I went and spent like two, three, two months in surgery, almost every week, watching spine surgery and orthopedic. Oh, and I fell in love with that. I’m like, you know what, I want to be orthopedic spine surgeon.
After that, I went to medical school, and I started right away with the orthopedic spine department, and I started researching and shadowing and observing cases. So, and here we are now. So since college, I wanted to be an orthopedic spine surgeon. So I loved the biomechanics, the concept, you know, I fell in love with it.
So what do you think of the East, like the Chinese traditional medicine? What do you, how do you feel about that?
I, I believe in that a lot. I believe in proper diets, basically. I believe that the food you eat has a lot to do with what happens to you and how you recover after surgery. So I’m incorporating now nutrition, and, you know, with the probiotics. Now nutrition, very, very important for patient recovery afterwards. Every patient now, they get my list of, basically, what I call anti-inflammatory diets to incorporate, to help them recover, whether they have surgery or not, doesn’t matter. But especially if they have surgery, it helps your people to recover a lot faster.
Also not to take narcotics anymore. Western, a lot of pain medications, a lot of narcotics, not good. You want to depend on holistic stuff, like, you know, the non-narcotic opiate medications, like, for example, ginger, turmeric, you know. So some of those Eastern stuff, it has been very, very powerful to avoid patients having pain after surgery and not become dependent on these narcotics.
So you, you know, United States right now, the very popular, they acupuncture.
Oh, I love it. I, I love people. No, absolutely, acupuncture.
So you believe that acupuncture, I think the [inaudible] can treat people?
Absolutely. I had, when I had my knee surgery many years ago, I had acupuncture done after surgery to help with the pain.
Oh, very helpful.
Yeah, very helpful. Very helpful.
This interesting, because you are a spine surgery doctor, so you accept the acupuncture.
I believe in the acupuncture, like hyperbaric oxygen therapy, when you go lay in oxygen chamber, all that stuff. Yeah, great acupuncturist, they can basically give, you know, the Eastern part of the medicine, and I do believe in that. It works.
So your concept is, if the patients need surgery, [inaudible], if they don’t need, you suggesting them to use a mainly integrated way?
Yes.
[inaudible]. That’s your concept?
And after the surgery, I always tell people, I’m only good 50%. The other fifty percent is the patient to do. Okay, other modalities, soft tissue, acupuncture, physical therapy, to get better, basically.
You see, after the surgery, they, they [inaudible] that they have to help themselves, by them, by themselves, to recover everything.
For any surgery, yes.
Okay. But when you do the surgery for them, after a few hours, they can get up, they can walk? And so, most of the time, the average, how many days they can really recover everything?
Most of the surgeries, the patients are, after, you know, after a couple hours, they’re walking, and they, they walk and they go home. They’re driving in a few days, and people go to work in a few days. So it’s very, very few days of people.
Yeah, it’s gonna work.
They can pretty much travel, get back to their normal life.
And before I let you go, I want to ask you a question. I know right now you’re achiever, a lot of people invite you to go to make that speech, and, but I heard that you set up their charity agency. They called Back to You.
Yes.
So what did you stop that, why you do, why do you do that?
Yes. There are, unfortunately, some patients, they don’t have the financial needs, they don’t have the insurance, and they need help. So I have a program called Back to You. It was set up about a little bit over five years ago, that basically my own, some of my own patients, they, if I ask them for their money, they will send the money to help do the surgery for somebody who has no, they have no money, they have no insurance, they can’t do anything, and they still want to get treated. So I like to help people once a month, do, I mean, I won’t charge for myself. It’s just to help for the facility, for the surgery. I’ll do the surgery free on my own time, but just to help the facility fee, the cost of that base for the patient.
So before you go, I wonder your comments, what’s your concept to your beautiful life?
You know, beautiful life is a life where you mitigate stress around you. Try not to have stress. Be, spend a lot of time, you know, I think, with the family. Try to be kind to people. Try to be nice to people, because it will come back to you. Treat everybody with dignity and respect, because guess what, it will come back to you. Treat animals, I believe in animals too. Treat animals with respect, the way you treat the humans, because they deserve as much, as much as we do. And treat your employees, if your employer, treat your employees with respect. They’re just like you, basically. And then love, have passion, have passion about what you do. Forget about the money. The money doesn’t matter. The money will come. If you have passion, you respect, you love what you do, you take care of people, God will take care of you. Oh, and spend time for yourself.
Have, actually, like your concept of the beautiful life. We have the passion, we have the love, we have today, respect, [inaudible], everything, make our world more beautiful. Thank you for coming.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Thank you for joining [inaudible]. So thank you for watching [inaudible] and
