Friday, October 8, 2010

"Do you think that laminectomy might have affected my scoliosis?

I think I need to hire a scribe to follow me around all day, to help me capture all of the interesting stories our guests share with us, and what we learn from serving them each day.  The past couple weeks have been filled with lots of great people visiting us from all over.

The woman pictured here was diagnosed with scoliosis as a teenager, but it was considered mild.
She did fine for many years, but about 8 years ago had a minimally invasive microdiscectomy and laminotomy done for a pinched nerve in her lumbar spine.
Soon after that, her posture began to lean to the right and forward, and she developed severe progressive pain and deformity.

Now she walks with quite a limp, and has quite a lean to the right and is quite kyphotic.
Her X-Rays show a severe collapsing double curve kyphoscoliosis and MRI shows severe spinal stenosis in lumbar region.
We can help her with a thoracolumbar sacral iliac wing instrumentation and fusion, with laminectomies and osteotomies, since her quality of life is bad, and getting worse each week.

Early detection and life long follow-up for scoliosis and kyphosis, as well as caution especially when considering laminectomy only in face of deformity are all  helpful suggestions to help prevent severe curve progression and more complex reconstructions, and also prevent lost quality of life days!

Dr. Lloyd Hey
Hey Clinic for Scoliosis and Spine Surgery.

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