Tuesday, October 23, 2007

It makes sense to me.

I had the good fortune to find a Neurosurgeon who has more certifications and belongs to more medical organizations than anyone I have come across. I just wish more surgeons would read his material and take some of the advice that Dr. Burton offers. He is certainly qualified to give it.

The following is from Dr. Charles V Burtons Burton Report


"It is remarkable, but true, that most people seem to spend a great deal more time in selecting downloads for their iPods than in selecting a spine surgeon. This is unfortunate because it is an important decision which often dictates a patient’s long-term quality of life.

Medicine is a profession, as many others, where prevailing therapeutic approaches may be, in fact outdated. There was a time, not too long ago when diseased hips, knees and ankles were routinely fused. Then the era of artificial joints changed this previously universal approach.

Spine surgery is still being held hostage to the "fusion" mind set. The spine is inherently flexible and forcing it to become rigid over many segments is the cause of significant stress related continuing problems. The result of this continues to be the inordinate production of "failed back surgery syndrome" patients.

It should seem readily evident that the architects who design skyscrapers include some flexibility in case of external stress such as hurricanes or earthquakes. If they do not do so these structures collapse. The same is true of the human lumbar spine and this is an important part of restorative spine surgery.

The need to reduce spine surgery failure has led to the advent of more physiologic, motion preserving, spine technologies of which artificial discs have probably received more than their fair share of M2H attention. It continues to be a sad, but true, story that some of the very best treatments often are associated with less commercial profit expectations and thus become medical "orphans" ignorant of William of Occams' Razor. Flexible stabilization systems and artificial disc nuclei exist today as well as restorative neuroradiology where polymers are injected.

It is essential for patients to become aware of all valuable options and search out those associated with less risk and higher efficacy. In spine surgery motion-preserving reconstructive (restorative) spine surgery represents one such important choice."

The information in quotes is the copyrighted material of Dr. Charles V. Burton and used with his permission. If you want to get a lot of information on the human spine and surgery, I suggest you visit his site below.
http://www.burtonreport.com/InfSpine/RestorativeSpineCareSurgical.htm

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've heard very good things about understandingpain.com out of Nashville. Dr Robert Cochran specializes in chronic pain.

Anyone who suffers from or requires information about chronic pain needs to check the site out.

Such a great resource for chronic pain sufferers.

Jerry said...

ATahank you for the information. I will check it out

Anonymous said...

In the last two years, I have had two spinal disc fusions and am in constant pain. Thank you for writing about chronic pain.