DailyMail – Triathlete’s Career-saving Spine Surgery

Now to a pro athlete’s career-saving spine surgery. Charlie Walters was a successful triathlete when the Uber car that he was riding in was hit head-on by a drunk driver. That accident seriously injured his spine, causing him excruciating pain and taking him out of competition. But thanks to a new surgical procedure, Charlie is getting back his former life and determined to resume competing later this year.

I smacked right into the back of the seat and had injuries in my leg, my knee, my back, and my wrist. It was just a really shocking, traumatic event.

That shocking, traumatic event happened back in November of 2020.

I felt like I was kind of at the peak of my performance, and then all of a sudden I couldn’t anymore. It’s really, really hard. I’ve seen it happen to other people, because I coach people too, but you never think it’s going to happen to you.

Charlie sought out surgeons to try and stop the pain and fix the damage he’d suffered.

My back especially was bothering me so much that I, I just couldn’t do everyday activities.

But time and time again, Charlie was told a spinal fusion was the only answer, and that answer could mean limited mobility and the likely end to his athletic career.

I went through waves of depression and not knowing what the outcome was going to be, not having a clear end path. Yeah, it was hard.

Then Charlie found board-certified orthopedic spine surgeon Dr. Hooman Melamed, who offered an alternative.

The technical term, it’s called biportal endoscopic surgery. It’s not a mainstream procedure.

But Charlie had another issue. He had a slip vertebrae.

This procedure has never been done in the United States on a patient who has a slip vertebrae like that. I said, but I’m willing to try it, because you’re an athlete, we have nothing to lose. If it doesn’t work, great, we can always end up doing the fusion.

So he went.

The biportal endoscopic surgery starts with two tiny incisions the size of the end of a pen. One allows the camera to be inserted so the doctor can see exactly where he’s working. The other is for the surgical tool used to perform the operation. Dr. Melamed has been doing this surgery now for three years.

The idea is to decompress the pain-causing nerve without disrupting any of the anatomy around it. You start identifying where the nerve is carefully, and then start removing all of the bone spurs, excessive discs, everything that is compressing the nerve. You start cleaning around it, create enough space for the nerve without sacrificing the stability of the vertebrae and the disc itself, preserving as much as normal anatomy to allow Charlie to resume everything as though he never had surgery.

Add Charlie’s operation to Dr. Melamed’s 90% success rate.

I’m still on the road to recovery for sure, but I am able to do all of the different disciplines for the triathlon now: swim, bike, run. I’m hoping to do the Malibu race in September. I will be hopefully back to my level in a few more months.

As long as the vertebrae doesn’t continue slipping forward, which most cases it doesn’t happen, this thing should last for him for maybe forever, potentially.

It’s just a miraculous thing that he was able to do, and I’m, I’ll be forever grateful.

For more on Dr. Melamed and orthopedic spine issues in general, also disorders too, you can head over to the doctor’s website at thespinepro.com.