Spine Conditions

Spine conditions encompass a wide range of disorders affecting the spinal column, including degenerative disc disease, herniated discs, and scoliosis. These conditions can result in pain, numbness, and functional limitations, requiring medical evaluation and treatment to alleviate symptoms and improve quality of life.

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An Update on Our Novel Alar and Transverse Ligament Injection Procedure

Way back when my career was just starting, I got a job with a physician who was involved in auto-accident managed care. This meant that there was a steady stream of neck-injured patients. While many of these patients could be helped, some couldn’t. While it would be attractive to say that these few had psychological…read more

Lumbar Fusion Is Usually a Business Model, Not Effective Treatment

Surgical fusion hardware is one of the most successful medical business plans ever devised. You take a screw and rods made for a few dollars in China or India and sell them for thousands of dollars. As a result, we’ve gone from a world where implanting hardware in the spines of patients was rare, to…read more

How to Avoid Discography Side Effects: Biologic Discography

Frankly, until we became the first in the world to inject stem cells into discs, discography never made much sense to me. I would tell patients, “I’m going to poke a hole in your disc to see if there’s a hole in your disc.” However, when we began to see that platelet rich plasma and…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

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

Disc Replacement Side Effects: New Research Is Concerning

The whole idea behind disc replacement is that it should have fewer side effects than fusing the spine. The artificial disc allows motion, which is, in theory, similar to a normal biologic disc. However, what if an artificial disc ended up distorting normal motion so badly that it still caused the disc above and below…read more

What Is Foraminal Stenosis?

What is foraminal stenosis?  Is it necessarily the cause of your back or neck pain, and does foraminal stenosis require surgery?  Let’s start from the beginning… Your spinal column, or backbone, is made up of vertebrae, stacked one on top of the other, with a disc between each level to provide cushion and absorb shock.…read more

Watch a Stem Cell Disc Treatment: Step into Our Procedure Suite with Dr. Pitts

With over 2,000 posts on this blog, I’ve given you a lot of material to read over the years about what we do; however, there’s nothing quite like watching an actual procedure. I hope you are enjoying this series of videos allowing you to step into one of our procedure suites so you can observe…read more
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