Ironically, great spine care involves doing everything you can to avoid having to operate on the patient. So it generally, in most cases, involves an incremental approach, starting with the most conservative and least invasive treatment, such as physical therapy or chiropractic, and then progressing to injections as needed.
And then, of course, ultimately surgical intervention, which is typically treatment of last resort.
I think that video held some good advice. You wanna avoid too much flexion, tilting forward at the low back. Don’t go excessive on the swing, as that twisting can really cause problems with the, with the low back. And warm up first. Maintain good core conditioning.
Medicine is a service industry just like any other. So I want patients to feel satisfied with their visit the same way they may feel satisfied if they go to a restaurant or hotel. I don’t want anybody to feel like they were rushed or shortchanged, and I want them to feel like their, their time was respected and all their questions were answered.
With over 20 years of experience in our community, I’ve learned that, often elderly patients need special considerations for spine surgery. It is fairly nuanced in that in some ways treatment for their conditions is the same as treatment for anybody else in, in other ways, the treatment has to take into consideration how they’re gonna get after care.
What is the reasonable, minimal approach to get them better without setting them up for another surgery? Things like home health, home PT come into play and safe pain medications that can help them get over surgery without overmedicating them.
A lot of my male patients come to me with back or neck pain, particularly back pain, and are concerned about their sexual function because it suffers. It can suffer for two reasons. One, pain itself can cause problems with sexual function. The other is, has an anatomic basis in that pressure on the nerves in the lower lumbar region can impair sexual function, so it has to be taken into consideration in treating any patient particularly male patients.