Pain After Neck Fusion: Adjacent Segment Disease

This past week, I have have seen several patients with neck fusions. All of whom had pain caused by the fusion. For some, the fusion had helped one problem and caused another. For others, the fusion didn’t help and just made things worse. So what’s going on? An Overview of the Spinal Column To understand…read more

Learning How Best to Inject the CCJ Ligaments: Our CCJ Instability Trial Begins…

Last week, we began the world’s first randomized controlled placebo trial to treat craniocervical junction (CCJ) instability. While our clinic has been treating these patients for more than two decades, these past few years, we have developed a new injection technique to finally begin addressing the problem in ways that existing care can not. Let me…read more

This Is SO Wrong: Neck Fusion Gone Bad

I have had about enough of my spine-surgery colleagues who perform a single fusion that doesn’t work and then keep digging the proverbial hole deeper and deeper by performing more fusions. Case in point this morning is a poor middle-aged woman with her whole neck fused! Now she’s miserable and has complications related to the…read more

Medical Innovation and Our Alar/Transverse Ligament Procedure

How does medicine advance? If you ask some academics, they’ll tell you that only they can advance medical science. However, that’s always been fiction as most medical breakthroughs have always come from doctors innovating to solve specific problems. This morning I’d like to share how we solved a problem with our alar transverse ligament procedure.…read more

What Causes Tightness in the Side of the Neck?

On this page: Tight scalene muscles Scalenes compensating for other muscles Ways to treat tightness in the side of the neck I’ve already told you about my left upper trap; now meet my left scalene. When I lift too much, these muscles, which live on the side of the neck, get tight. Tight Scalene Muscles…read more

Fusion Surgery No Better than No Surgery

Does fusion surgery work? I have blogged before about the research showing that this surgery is often no better in the long-run than no surgery. However, I’ve also pointed out that surgeons have a way of interpreting data in studies that benefit their preconceived notions of efficacy. Today’s blog is about one such study which…read more

Weak Neck Muscles Can Cause Shoulder Trap Pain When Lifting

I have a way of knowing when my neck nerves are ramped up and my neck stabilizers are off line. My left upper trapezius muscle gets tight. This is a super common thing and most patients believe it has something to do with the actual muscle. So they stretch it and stretch it, only for…read more

Our New C0–C1 Facet Injection Paper

This past decade, a big change has occurred in neck facet-joint treatment. The art of injecting something into a facet joint has become slowly extinct, while the procedures to perform nerve ablation of painful neck joints have ramped up. This has caused a real problem as newer regenerative-medicine techniques involving stem cells and platelet rich…read more