Complications
Complications are unintended and often undesirable outcomes that can occur during medical procedures or treatments. They can range from minor issues to more serious adverse events and may arise due to various factors such as underlying health conditions, surgical errors, or reactions to medications. Understanding complications is crucial for healthcare providers to anticipate risks, mitigate potential harms, and ensure patient safety.
Subscribe to the BlogSteroid Injections Kill Cartilage, so Why Not a Long Acting Steroid Shot?
Last month, a high-level research study confirmed what we’ve known for years: the anti-inflammatory steroid that the average family doctor, pain-management specialist, or orthopedic surgeon is injecting into your knee is killing the cartilage. So that research should put the whole steroid injection thing to bed, right? Nope. Surprisingly, this week, a company called Flexion has announced…read more
RIP Radiofrequency Ablation Treatment for Low Back Pain
When Radiofrequency Ablation (RFA) became popular in the late 90s, it seemed like a miracle for many patients with chronic neck pain. At the same time, while this therapy seemed to work reliably to provide pain relief in the neck, it was always hit or miss as a treatment for low back pain. Perhaps that’s…read more Stem Cell Institute of America: The Plot Thickens
As I sit here and write this, I’m in a bit of a time crunch. You see, getting better and better at regenerative medicine is hard. There are physicians to educate in advanced image-guided injection procedures, research that needs to be completed or published, fellows that need to be taught, advances in the lab and the…read more Epidural Steroid Side Effects: Repeated Injections Cause Diminishing Relief
On the surface, as a nonsurgical way to relieve pain and inflammation, epidural steroid injections seem like a great idea. However, when we dive beneath the surface, we find that epidural steroid side effects are pretty awful. I’ve observed many times, that for some patients, that while that first shot seems nothing short of miraculous,…read more NSAIDs and Opioids May Not Work for Pain!
As if we needed yet another reason to just say no to NSAIDs and opioids, it seems that some of them just aren’t working. So while you may be getting a lot with these drugs—the risk of sudden-death heart attacks and strokes and GI bleeding with NSAIDS, and addiction and more pain with opioids, for…read more Who Knew That the Hip Was Impacted by the Back?
Your body is connected, a fact that modern medicine often ignores. Why? It’s easiest as a physician to focus on the spot where it hurts. However, when we make changes to the body through surgery, it has impacts. This morning I’d like to review a study that shows that surgically fusing the low back for…read more Even Short-term Oral Steroid Side Effects Are Bad News!
Oral steroids (e.g., prednisolone, hydrocortisone, methylprednisolone (medrol) dosepak, etc.) are prescribed often, most commonly for inflammatory conditions, such as arthritis, bronchitis and asthma, inflammatory bowel diseases, muscle pain, allergies, and more. I have known for a long time about the complications and side effects associated with the long-term use of oral steroids (osteoporosis, weight gain,…read more Shoulder Labrum Surgery No Better Than a Sham Procedure
Yikes, this has been a terrible decade for elective orthopedic surgery. For years studies have come out and pummeled the world’s most common elective surgeries, such as knee “cleanups” and meniscus procedures showing that neither can beat the outcome of a sham or fake surgery. This last year has also been awful as recent research demonstrated…read more 
