BALTIMORE, Md. (Ivanhoe Newswire) — Neck pain, shoulder pain, back pain, arm pain — these can all be caused by herniated discs — if left untreated, it can become debilitating and lead to nerve damage. Now, a new procedure is helping to get people up and moving pain-free.
Just opening a cupboard was almost impossible for Kellie Weathers a few years ago.
“I was just having like, really, really bad headaches. I had a lot of tingling in my fingers down my arm,” she explained.
Kellie thought it was her shoulder, but…
“When I took a MRI, they found out it was actually my neck,” she said.
As a receptionist — the toll of sitting at a desk 10 hours a day for 13 years caught up with her. Kellie had two herniated discs by the time she saw Mercy Medical Center neurosurgeon Charles Park, MD.
“She came and says, you know, I cannot work anymore. The pain is really debilitating,” he recalled.
The outer portion of Kellie’s discs ruptured and some of the softer material inside squeezed out and was hitting her nerves. Physical therapy, anti-inflammatory medications, muscle relaxers and steroid shots didn’t take away her pain. Dr. Park used an anterior cervical discectomy and fusion or ACDF to help.
“Anterior means from the front, right? Anterior. Cervical means in the neck. Discectomy means are actually removing all the disc away from the nerve. And the fusion means they’re actually fusing the bone above and below the disc,” he explained.
Because Dr. Park went in from the front, no muscles were cut and he says recovery is 50% faster than traditional fusion. Kellie went home from surgery the next day and was back to work in four weeks.
“This is actually one of the best surgeries that we do. It’s like more than 95 percent successful, right?” expressed Dr. Park.
“I’m great now I can move it, I can lift my arm and there’s no tingling. I can do, it’s like a hundred percent better,” Kellie told Ivanhoe.
People ages 30-50 are most likely to get a herniated disc and it affects men twice as often as women. A few risk factors include sitting for long periods of time, being overweight, lifting heavy objects, repetitive bending or twisting for work or sports and smoking.
Contributors to this news report include: Marsha Lewis, Producer; Matt Goldschmidt, Videographer; Roque Correa, Editor.
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Source:
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/12768-herniated-disk
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Dan Collins
Senior Director of Media Relations at Mercy Medical Center
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