Conservative Care
Conservative care refers to non-invasive or minimally invasive treatment approaches aimed at managing health conditions and promoting overall well-being. This approach often emphasizes lifestyle modifications, physical therapy, and other non-surgical interventions to alleviate symptoms and improve quality of life.
Subscribe to the BlogIs Injecting Bupivacaine or Lidocaine into a Joint Malpractice?
This week a patient sent a note that her mom was to undergo surgery and the anesthesia crew was planning on using the local anesthetic bupivacaine. She knew from reading the blog that this wasn’t a good idea, so let’s explore just how nasty this drug is to joints and why doctors are still using…read more
Cervical Disc Replacement Complications: Metal Ions
We ended the 20th century with the idea that we could cut out parts of a person, like a joint or a disc, and insert metal and achieve great things. Then reality got in the way, in that studies began to show that these metal or plastic or ceramic parts wear down and those particles…read more Pain in Base of Thumb: Convincing a Skeptic
More than a year ago I was lecturing at a medical conference, and a woman who was a stem cell scientist approached me. While some scientists usually don’t like physicians using stem cells, this one had pain in the base of the thumb and asked if I could help. I just received an e-mail back from her,…read more Can We Treat Severe Shoulder Arthritis Through an Injection?
Orthopedic surgeons have taught us that our bodies are just machines, like your car engine, and that when a part breaks down, it needs to be replaced. So they can’t conceptualize how a severely arthritic shoulder joint with no cartilage and huge bone spurs could be treated without replacing the shoulder. However, that’s not what…read more Your Knee Pain Is Most Likely Due to Knee Arthritis Nerve Pain
>>Skip ahead in the article: knee arthritis nerve pain Modern orthopedics is all about structure. However, there’s a big problem with this focus. Recent research shows that this model is seriously flawed. For example, it’s an urban myth that cartilage loss in the knee is associated with knee pain, and most orthopedic surgeons today replace…read more The Side Effects of Orthopedic Surgery: Doubling Down at the Great Orthopedic Surgery Casino
What are the side effects of orthopedic surgery? One of the more disturbing things we see in interventional orthopedics is patients who have undergone multiple aggressive types of orthopedic surgery. The behavior is a bit like a gambler at a casino. If you don’t hit it big the first time, keep doubling down until you…read more Are You a Candidate for Our Novel CCJ Instability Procedure?
This past year we were the first clinic in the world to begin offering a first-of-its-kind direct stem cell treatment for the alar, transverse, and accessory ligaments that make up the craniocervical junction, or CCJ. Given that the only other option that seems to work for these CCJ instability patients is a very, very invasive…read more Xiphoidalgia: Should We Cut Out the Xiphoid?
I’ve had a disconcerting brush with what I called “ectomy” pain treatment through the years. My first experience was meeting a patient with testicular pain who had them removed to try and help his agony. This procedure, of course, didn’t work, so that’s why he came to see me. More recently, a patient came in with many…read more 
