Spine Conditions

Why Fixing My Back Can Help You Fix Yours

I’ve had chronic off-and-on back issues for many years. However, recently, I got a little crazy with lifting an impossibly heavy object and needed an updated treatment. However, I discovered my new diagnosis late. That error will hopefully help you fix your low back. Let me dig in. My Bad Back History When I was…read more

What is Slipping Rib Syndrome?

Many patients have rib pain, but this often goes undiagnosed. Today we’ll explore why and get into “Slipping Rib Syndrome” as well as the concept of rib instability. Let’s dig in. The Typical Patient While many different patients can have pain in the upper back or chest due to a wide variety of things, slipping…read more

MIS, the Minuteman, and Fusion: Is This a Good Idea?

I cruised around on Linkedin this morning and chanced upon a discussion where someone had fused a patient for a herniated disc. This raised a critical point regarding fusion and the new trend for interventional pain management (IPM) physicians to fuse patients using “MIS.” Let’s review that idea through one specific device that IPM physicians…read more

Dead Lifts and Spondylolisthesis

If there is one exercise recommended by personal trainers that causes more back injuries than any other, it’s a deadlift. I have literally treated dozens of patients through the years who can track the start of a serious low back injury to this exercise. This week I saw two of these patients with one who…read more

Regenerative vs. Ablative: The Battle Over Lumbar RFA and Multifidus Atrophy

Medicine advances because advocates for various treatments duke it out in the research literature. That time-honored system produces an intellectual Darwinism effect and one of those evolutionary battles happening in pain medicine is between opposing regenerative and ablative camps. Today we’ll dive into one example of that conceptual crucible by focusing on little muscles in…read more

Interventional Spine Physicians Finally Get the Memo on Bupivacaine

It would be hard for most people to believe that we’ve known for more than a decade that a long-acting anesthetic called Bupivacaine is toxic to cartilage and yet in interventional pain management, it’s still the most widely injected anesthetic into joints. Why that disconnect exists says much about the problems in modern medicine, but…read more

What is the Ligamentum Flavum? Why Should You Care?

One of the more critical ligaments in your spine is generally an unknown for most patients. That’s despite being responsible for causing lots of back pain and general havoc. That structure is called the ligamentum flavum. Let’s dig in. Ligaments and the Spine If we had to hold a competition between different spinal structures like…read more

Sports vs Spine: Understanding Levels of Regen Spine Care

One of the biggest problems in interventional orthobiologics is the dramatic differences between the levels of provider training and how that impacts what you get. While you may not know much about that, the goal here is to educate patients and appeal to my colleagues to provide full transparency. Let’s dig in. Selling Procedures and…read more