I’m sure you’ve got a nasty little spinal disc problem bugging the heck out of you.
No matter how many times you see your spinologist, back O’ practor, or Osteocrackist, they don’t seem to be helping. Your back just continues to bring you mind numbing pain. Well it could be you and the thousands of others who’ve had spinal fusion (not spinal tap you Nigel Tufnel fans!) now have a different option available.
Now I know we typically don’t provide a large amount of health news here,as a number of our staff advocate (for the “of age”) a healthy malted beverage intake. However, this is seriously cool spinal news.
In August the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) approved the use of the Prodisc lumbar insert. What it basically does (as the fully advanced version would dull any self respecting orthopedic surgeon) Just kidding, if an orthopedic surgeon you know is bored by this, then he needs to go back to his or her old profession of professional (insert sport here) most of them are kick butt jocks,, I know they used to hammer me in cycling for years,, then I moved!
Basically you have what are known as discs in your back, a simpler answer would be, squishy slidey shock absorbers to keep you from screaming while you walk and enable controtionists to bend like gumby after he’s had a barrel of metamucil.
When these don’t work for people any more they are
- in PAIN
- did I mention the pain?!
- Have lots of trouble both standing straight up and sitting down and everything in between as the spine does not flex in the manner that it is supposed to.
Get this, the solution for many years has been called fusion, and yes, in other words, they pin a couple of your spino-sections (not real medical terminology) together. It actually does work and helps people to lead normal lives where they just don’t bend over really far, but essentially it does provide a lot of relief. I had a buddy I worked with years ago who had this, and people thought he was rather braggadocious as he would walk around very upright, people took this to mean he was a pompous jerk, what it really meant was he is a great guy with fused vertebrae. Don’t judge people!
For lots of cool images of Prodisc in use go here.
I don’t know if you can un-fuse a spine and insert these new Prodiscs, but for anyone with and horrible disc issues (I don’t think they do this unless you’re really hurtin!
Thanks megdadget!