Faster Back Pain Relief
Reported August 25, 2008
ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) — Each year, 40 to 60 percent of adults in the United States suffer from chronic back pain and more than one million of these people seek spinal surgery procedures. A new surgery is offering relief to many of these people with less pain, less rehabilitation and less anxiety.
“My dogs give me much more than I could ever give them,” Lorrie Henry told Ivanhoe; but this dedication led to a devastating accident.
“I had slipped on some water that the dogs spilled out of their bowl and my legs came up from under me and slammed me down right on my back,” Henry recalled.
Although a disc in Henry’s spine had been flattening for a while, the fall did her in.
“I was not able to interact with the dogs,” she said. “I wasn’t able to ride my bike. I wasn’t able to do a lot of things that I normally do.”
Traditional surgery to treat back pain involves a large incision, a three to four-hour surgery, and a long, painful recovery; but it turns out Henry was a good candidate for a procedure called AxiaLIF, which involves a less than one-inch incision, less time under the knife and a shorter, less painful recovery
“They can get up and get moving much quicker in the hospital and they leave the hospital quicker,” Stephen Goll, M.D., an orthopedic spine surgeon at Orlando Orthopedic Center in Orlando, Fla., told Ivanhoe.
After doctors make a small incision at the base of the spine, the old, flattened disc is cleaned out. That space is filled with bone from the patient or bone growth material. The area is stabilized with a bolt and two screws. In Henry’s case, relief was immediate.
“I woke up in my hospital room and it was amazing,” she recalled. “I knew that I did not have the pain that I went in with.”
After only two weeks with a walker, Henry was back in the spin of things.
“It’s wonderful,” she said. “My life is back and I can do all the things I used to do.”
The FDA has now cleared AxiaLIF to treat the segment above the previously approved L-5 to S-1 vertebrae. This means half of all patients seeking lumbar spine fusions are now candidates for the less invasive procedure.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Orlando Orthopaedic Center
(407) 254-4058
dr.goll@orlandoortho.com
http://www.orlandoortho.com
Trans1, Inc.
(866) 500-4349
http://www.trans1.com