[lit-ideas] Re: Kyphoplasty?
- From: Andy Amago <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2005 20:27:09 -0500 (GMT-05:00)
I don't have back pain, so I can't speak from experience. However, I do know
that for years doctors thought that if a disc didn't look a certain way, it was
"herniated", or defective in some way. Now I think the focus is changing such
that discs can deviate from an average appearance and still be normal. The
problem with the older thinking was that a lot of surgery came up empty, with
the patient in as much pain after as before, plus dealing with post surgical
problems. None of this is to say that discs can't be geniunely "herniated",
just that a lot of pain goes unexplained, even after corrective surgery. Has
any doctor said anything about physical therapy?
Andy Amago
-----Original Message-----
From: JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx
Sent: Feb 13, 2005 8:08 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Kyphoplasty?
If the diagnosis is so uncertain, why is kyphoplasty the answer?
The most recent diagnosis was herniated discs. A friend who works in the
Medical Library dept. of a hospital (see my original post) told me that she
understood (as a result of research she had done for Dr's) that kyphoplasty was
a recent treatment for hearniated discs. I don't know that that's "the
answer". I was trying to find out more about the relationship between the
possible diagnosis and the treatment, as googling wasn't netting much of
anything.
I am grateful for the response I've gotten from this "community". I do think
of it as a community, by now. Thank you.
Julie Krueger
casting nets anywhere I can think of
========Original Message======== Subj: [lit-ideas] Re: Kyphoplasty?
Date: 2/13/05 6:46:29 P.M. Central Standard Time From: _aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
(mailto:aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx) To: _lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
(mailto:lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx) , _lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
(mailto:lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx)
Sent on:
Friday, February 11, 2005, 6:43:50 PM, JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx wrote:
Jac> I know there are a number of various types of medical Doctors or people
with
Jac> relatives who are MD's on this list. I have a question for any of you
that
Jac> might be able to steer me in the right direction. In addition to
having
Jac> recurrent colon cancer and all the attendant joys of chemo-therapy, my
Mother,
Jac> who is 63, had had excruciating back pain for months. First they were
Jac> concerned that it was cancer moving into her bones. CT scans cleared
that one up.
Jac> Then they told her she had severe osteo-arthritis. Another physician
nixed
Jac> that diagnosis. The most recent diagnosis (how is it possible for
something in
Jac> this day and age of medicine to be so undiagnosable??) is herniated
discs.
Jac> Of course, they want to do surgery. She's absolutely terrified of and
Jac> opposed to surgery, but is desperate. A friend who works in a medical
records
Jac> dept. at a local hospital told me about a fairly recent procedure,
called
Jac> "kyphoplasty" in which a glue-like cement-like substance is injected
into the places
Jac> beteen the discs. A search on Google for "kyphoplasty herniated
discs"
Jac> turned up nothing helpful.
A.A. If the diagnosis is so uncertain, why is kyphoplasty the answer? My
understanding of kyphoplasty is that it is for the osteoporotic fractures that
create the kyphosis, or hunch back, of osteoporosis. It's still, I believe,
relatively experimental. Back pain is the #1 problem in the U.S. It costs
billions in medical care, much of it unsuccessful, as well as lost
productivity. Much back pain is, I hate to say it, psychosomatic in origin.
Not all
of it, of course, but a huge amount of it. Psychosomatic pain is real pain.
It just has no physical cause.
Andy Amago
Jac> Julie Krueger
Jac> Trammadol isn't touching her pain .... something's gotta be done!
Jac> ------------------------------------------------------------------
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