Come Prepared. Leave Informed.
All spine patients deserve the best possible treatment to relieve their low back or neck pain.
Low back pain often includes leg and hip pain, called sciatica, and neck pain often includes arm and shoulder pain, called radiculopathy. We use the word “pain”, but symptoms are often more than just pain and can include:
- muscle spasms
- cramps
- pins and needles numbness
- weakness
- muscle twitching
These are all symptoms caused by spinal disc problems, and most spinal disc issues are caused by disc tears, called annular tears. This is because annular tears directly lead to the development of:
- disc herniations
- bulges
- protrusions
- pinched nerves
- bone spurs
- slipped discs
- degenerative disc disease
Although disc problems are called many names by doctors and patients, the one undeniable fact is that these problems are almost always caused by annular tears.
Here's What's New and Important
It doesn’t matter if you have a disc protrusion, bulge, or even pinched nerve because all the symptoms are caused by leakage of the spinal disc’s liquid chemicals through annular tears.
This is how we know that chemical inflammation, rather than physical pinching or bulging is the cause of symptoms. Knowing that symptoms are caused by chemical inflammation explains why the success rate of spine surgery is as low as 22% and why a landmark spine study revealed that MRIs have no correlation with symptoms (Jensen, et al. New England Jour. Med July, 1994).
Unfortunately, many spine specialists have been trained to rely on spine MRIs or CTs to diagnose spine issues. However, today we know that most spine symptoms occur as a result of annular tears.
All of the aforementioned disc problems (bulges, herniations, degeneration, protrusions, etc.) only occur because the spinal disc’s outer wall, the annulus fibrosus, develops tears.
The Annulus Fibrosus is made of 22-25 layers or rings. These rings are important because they are the only thing separating the disc’s inner gel, the Nucleus Pulposus, from the outer world, a term used by scientists to describe everything outside of the Nucleus Pulposus.
Now You Understand the Likely Cause of Your Pain
The following questions have been developed to improve your likelihood of having a successful treatment outcome.
Because even in the best surgeon’s hands, over half of the patients who undergo spine surgery do not experience long-term pain relief of their neck, low back, arm, or sciatica pain.
In fact, an important scientific publication revealed that most USA spine surgeons do not know their long-term success or failure rate because, after surgery, almost all surgeons refer their patients to Physician’s Assistants or Pain Management Doctors for injections.
Ask Your Doctor the Right Questions
Download the Doctor Discussion Guides with Up-to-Date Questions
Sharing your knowledge with your doctor will help you and your physician create a treatment plan with the greatest likelihood of success. Get the answers you need in our Doctor Discussion Guide.
You may print these questions as a checklist to bring with you to your appointment.
Come Prepared. Leave Informed.
All surgery has risks and benefits, whether minimally invasive or not. So don’t hesitate to ask these questions from our Surgeon Discussion Guide.
Get a full understanding of any surgery recommended to you prior to undergoing the procedure.
