Banishing Back Pain
By Erin Emery, Memorial Health System
Arlene Brush was trying to pull what she calls her “little old lady cart’’ up the steps to her apartment when she lost her balance and fell, landing on the steps.
“Help! Help, Help!’’ she cried, as she lay on the ground. Her neighbors, with their televisions blaring, didn’t hear her pleas.
An hour passed, and Brush decided she’d better have a chat with God: “Ok, God, you and I have to work. I have to get up and go.’’
Somehow, Brush, 66, managed to pull herself up and walk to her apartment. She lay down on the bed. In time, the woman, who says she is not a “worry wart,” knew the pain would subside and she’d be back to her normal routine – going to the grocery store, driving and lugging cat litter around to care for her cats, Patches and Garfield.
Six weeks later, however, Brush still had excruciating pain. Since her fall, she walked hunched over and couldn’t stand up straight.
“I had stabbing pains from the middle of my back all the way down to my right foot, and no matter what I did, it did not work,’’ Brush says.
She decided to go see Dr. Roger Sung, a spine surgeon. An X-ray showed Brush had a compression fracture in her L-1 lumbar vertebrae. Sung recommended that she wear a brace to see if the pain would go away. It didn’t help, so Sung recommended kyphoplasty surgery.
Kyphoplasty helps relieve pain for patients who have newer compression fractures by stabilizing the fracture and restoring the shape of the vertebra. Usually, patients have experienced a traumatic event – a fall or a car accident. The surgery also may be helpful for patients who have pain due to compression fractures caused by osteoporosis or cancer of the spine, Sung says.
The surgery may be done under sedation or general anesthesia. With an X-ray, the surgeon identifies the fractured vertebra, and then makes a small incision on the person’s back – an incision so small that it does not require stitches and is simply covered with a Band-Aid.
With a small metal probe, the surgeon feeds a balloon through the root of the pedicle into the vertebral body. The surgeon inflates the balloon, which raises the bone to its proper height. Once the original shape of the vertebra is re-created, cement is injected into the body.
“We look at everything under X-ray to make sure that we are in a safe area,’’ Sung says.
The surgery, the doctor says, takes 10 minutes.
“It takes more time for them to get you ready for the surgery than the surgery itself,’’ Brush says.
By the time Brush got dressed and was ready to leave the hospital, the “pain in my back was gone,’’ she explains.
Brush rode in a wheelchair to the front door of Memorial and then walked to a waiting Silver Key van, which drove her home. She then walked to her front door.
“I had to be at Memorial at 5:30 a.m. – I was the first one of the day – and I was home by 10 o’ clock,’’ Brush says.
Dr. John McVicker, a neurosurgeon at Memorial, says he has done kyphoplasty for many years.
“I mostly do them in people who are elderly, who have osteoporotic fractures or steroid-induced osteopenia (bone loss).’’ McVicker says. “In most patients, the procedure helps provide a little more stability and helps restore quality of life. One of the main benefits is that it substantially decreases a patient’s pain.’’
Brush said that the biggest benefit of kyphoplasty is that the broken back pain goes away.
“It’s a lifesaver, a pain saver,’’ Brush says. “There’s nothing to it – no bleeding, no nothing. “And, one of the best things is I wasn’t leaning over anymore.’’
