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Herniated Disc
August 14, 2007
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Your spine supports and stabilizes your entire body; so
if you hurt your back, your
daily activities can come to a standstill.
Solving crimes keeps detective Jay Brett pretty busy and active. But he says one
day -- out of the blue – severe pain stopped him dead in his tracks. “It was excruciating
pain, I couldn’t walk, every step hurt. I couldn’t stand up straight, basically every movement I did hurt.”
Orthopedic surgeon Paul Fuchs explains that Jay’s pain was caused by a herniated
disc – which means the padding from one of his vertebra slipped out of place. It’s
usually caused from lifting or turning the wrong way. “The most critical issue here
is when the back pain develops into leg pain. When they have searing or shooting
pain into the buttock and leg that is severe, that could potentially be something where the disc has herniated or piece of the disc has come out and actually pinched
one of the lumbar nerve roots.”
Dr. Fuchs says that surgical treatment for a herniated disc often means fusing the
disks together. Today surgeons have new options, which means they use less invasive
ways to relieve the pain and get patients back on their feet. “The microscopic disectomy
offers us a minimally invasive way to approach the disc to remove the disc piece,
just the piece that came out, get it off of the nerve ring. It really has an outstanding
success rate, in the ninety percent range, of improving the leg pain and allows
the patients to get back to work.”
Jays adds, “It was 100% better. I can actually enjoy life now compared to before.
Something he’s very grateful for.
Doctors say one of the best ways to speed up recovery time after any type of surgery
is to stay in good physical shape before an injury occurs.
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